février 12, 2012
Insight – Rating results: Asia
Following its mission, MicroFinanza Rating provides microfinance institutions and investors with independent information to foster the microfinance sector transparency. This insight presents the rating results of Asia in particular.
Télécharger septembre 10, 2012
Insight – Poverty outreach
Does microfinance reach the poor?
Sometimes yes, sometimes in part;
Sometimes it does not really want to;
Generally we say it does;
In most of the cases we do not know.
Microfinance promises to reach the poor and the excluded. Yet, very little is known about the profile of the clients reached. MicroFinanza Rating presents the actual poverty outreach observed in the industry over the past 7 years of social ratings.
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mai 27, 2012
Financial results of Microfinance Institutions: Social performance matters
The purpose of this study is to contribute to the research on the relationships between social and financial performance of microfinance institutions. The Centre for Responsible Banking & Finance at the University of St. Andrews (UK) applies advanced statistical techniques to the in depth social performance data from Microfinanza Rating. The hypotesis that the relationship is parabolic instead of linear is broadly confirmed by the empirical results. Social performance management and social responsibility towards the staff are needed to sustain financial performance but lose their positive financial impact after a certain point (inverted U-shape). In contrast, building client protection systems from scratch can be costly, but the efforts pay off once the “minimum critical mass” of client protection is achieved to ensure the clients’ and investors‘ trust (U shape). The findings imply that social performance matters for the financial results; understanding the synergies and the trade-offs between the two is key to balance the sustainability and the progress towards the social mission.
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novembre 22, 2011
Motivating your Board of Directors to Actively Promote and Deepen the Social Mission
Recent studies in the microfinance arena identify missions drifts of MFIs away from their socially responsible ambition and highlight that their boards of directors might lack motivation to commit to this key promise (Copestake, 2007). These tendencies to digress from the stated social mission, coupled with irresponsible institutional behavior, besides representing a governance failure, pose a systemic threat to the microfinance sector as a whole.
In this context, this workshop paper written for the Microcredit Summit Campaign explores some topics that have the potential to motivate the MFIs’ BoD to promote and deepen the social mission of their organizations.
Télécharger septembre 12, 2010
Social and financial performance
Investigating the relation between social and fi nancial performance is key in a sector aiming at contributing to social development in a financially sustainable way. MicroFinanza Rating is willing to contribute to the discussion by sharing some of the fi ndings arising from the social ratings conducted so far, bringing in particular the added value of accurate data collected through client surveys.
Télécharger mai 7, 2010
Poverty Outreach and Financial Exclusion
MicroFinanza Rating is willing to share its experience cumulated through social ratings in order to try to provide some concrete answers on the issue of depth of microfi nance outreach. The analysis benefi ts from the added value of the comprehensive social rating methodology, which allows a direct measurement of poverty and fi nancial exclusion thanks to surveys conducted on clients. Results are referred to a sample of recent clients of MFIs.
Télécharger mars 18, 2010
Consumer Protection and Social Responsibility
Social Responsibility and consumer protection have become critical issues in microfi nance and there is evidence of a continuing effort within the sector to apply corporate social responsibility standards (staff, clients, community and environment) to microfi nance as well. Moreover, the need to put clients fi rst and to protect them from possible negative effects of the services provided is even more important for the microfi nance industry whose declared target is to reach out to poor and vulnerable people.
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