Financial Performance and Social Goals of Microfinance Institutions PDF Download

Author: Julian Schmied
Publisher: Universitätsverlag Potsdam
ISBN: 3869562757
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 70

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Book Description
Critics argue that there has been a trend among Microfinance Institutions (MFI) to focus on profitability in order to stay financially sustainable. This made some institutions neglect the social mission of microfinancing. In this paper I intend to examine if empirical evidence supports this so called mission drift hypothesis as well as other claims in this context. Using the global panel data set of the MIX (Microfinance Information Exchange), which gathers from 1995 to 2010 and contains up to 1400 institutions with a high variety of organizational forms, I was able to identify a world-wide mission drift effect in their social goal of reaching out the poorest part of the population. Furthermore, I find that, on average, the outreach of an MFI has a significant negative influence on its short and long term financial performance. Despite that, I eventually proved that the probability that an MFI worsens its social performance substantially increases if its profitability has decreased in the previous years.

Author: R. Mersland
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 113739966X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 329

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Book Description
Research on MFI performance is still in its infancy. MFIs are hybrid organizations with dual objectives. Performance studies in microfinance are therefore less straightforward compared to performance studies in traditional banking research. This book contains new MFI performance research by top scholars from across the globe.

Author: R. Mersland
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 113739966X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 318

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Book Description
Research on MFI performance is still in its infancy. MFIs are hybrid organizations with dual objectives. Performance studies in microfinance are therefore less straightforward compared to performance studies in traditional banking research. This book contains new MFI performance research by top scholars from across the globe.

Author: Adrian Gonzalez
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 15

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Book Description
The microfinance industry has long speculated about potential trade-offs between financial and social goals. While struggling to achieve rapid growth, serve more clients, improve portfolio quality, and become financially sustainable, microfinance institutions (MFIs) with a double bottom line have to ensure they are meeting their development goals (women's empowerment, rural outreach, and social responsibility to clients). Often, development goals put pressure on financials, and many MFIs worry that becoming “socially-focused” may deteriorate their efficiency, portfolio quality, or productivity. At the same time, the microfinance industry is giving more importance to avoiding over-indebtedness, having better human resource policies in place, and implementing proper staff training and incentive schemes that may improve financial performance as well. These potential synergies between social performance (SP) and financial performance (FP) can compensate for some of the trade-offs commonly associated with pursuing a double bottom line.The main goal of this paper is to identify and quantify both trade-offs and synergies between the social performance and financial performance goals of microfinance institutions. The main questions explored are whether significant relationships between social and financial performance exist, and whether these relationships lead to trade-offs and synergies in terms of MFIs' achievement of their double bottom line.

Author: Johannes Flosbach
Publisher: LIT Verlag Münster
ISBN: 3643906005
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 373

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Book Description
This book examines the determinants of financial performance of microfinance institutions (MFIs) in Ghana and Uganda, against the backdrop of the public and academic debate over the financial and social implications of microfinance. In the absence of a conceptual model, the study chooses an inductive research approach with the objective of defining and developing a conceptual model with the capacity to explain, quantify, and compare the performance of MFIs. The research is particularly relevant in the African context where microloan interest rates regularly exceed 100% per annum and where the microfinance industry is lacking behind its global peers in regard to financial and social performance. (Series: Contributions to the Africa Research / Beitrage zur Afrikaforschung - Vol. 59) [Subject: Economics, Finance, African Studies]

Author: Pim Engels
Publisher: ibidem-Verlag / ibidem Press
ISBN: 3838261232
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 127

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Book Description
Investments in microfinance by institutional investors are growing. The investors benefit from a dual return investment opportunity by balancing financial and social returns. Yet, commercial microfinance institutions tend to focus on their financial performance. Reaching out to wealthier clients while crowding out poorer clients enhances their profitability - a phenomenon called mission drift.Pim Engels has analysed the data of 600 microfinance institutions operating in 84 countries and presents now new insights to the phenomenon of mission drift. Based on his findings investors can recognise and prevent mission drift taking place amongst the microfinance institutions in their portfolio.

Author: Bernd Balkenhol
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN: 9780230547025
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 194

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Book Description
Microfinance institutions (MFIs) provide a public good: they provide income-creating financial services to un-bankable people. If MFIs create and deepen markets where none existed before, there may be a case for public support. While subsidies are generally not favorably seen in financial sector development, being difficult to target and possibly distorting the local financial market, there may be situations where the net social benefits of micro-finance may exceed those of not doing anything and of alternative anti-poverty programs. Under such circumstances longer-term public support may be justifiable. This book is based on a study of forty-five MFIs carried out by ILO, in partnership with the Universities of Geneva and Cambridge. The application of factor analysis and cluster analysis shows that MFIs form clusters in terms of social and performance. Within each cluster there is one institution that is most efficient on both scores. Public support should ensure that the relative efficiency of MFIs is enhanced, it should not prod MFIs to modify their mission and position between poverty outreach and profitability.

Author: Joanna Ledgerwood
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 0821384317
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
The purpose of the 'Microfinance Handbook' is to bring together in a single source guiding principles and tools that will promote sustainable microfinance and create viable institutions.

Author: Manfred Zeller
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN: 080187226X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 426

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Book Description
Since the 1980s when the microfinance revolution began, much has been accomplished, but the field became more refined in the 1990s as a result of shifts in paradigms, strategies, and development practices. This volume addresses the three policy objectives that now occupy those who wish to use credit as a development tool: financial sustainability of microfinance institutions, outreach to the poor, and welfare impact. Inevitable tradeoffs exist among these objectives, and the book advances an analytical framework that assists students of and experts in microfinance to identify the tradeoffs and synergies at the institutional level and in the policy environment. The book features a wealth of empirical data and innovative analytical studies, and critically discusses the role of public support for microfinance institutions (MFIs) in light of the social costs and benefits generated by such financial systems. The book is organized into five parts. The first discusses the demand for and access to financial services by the poor, emphasizing that demand-oriented, pro-poor financial services are crucial in reaching the poor. The second is concerned with two of the criteria used to evaluate MFIs—outreach and financial sustainability. The third features innovative econometric studies seeking to evaluate the impact of MFIs at the household level. The fourth looks at the role of both public- and private-sector institutions in developing sustainable financial systems. And the fifth summarizes implications for policy and research. Given the lack of sound, empirical literature on microfinance, this volume is sure to advance knowledge and research methodology in the field.

Author: Md Aslam Mia
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 9811902178
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 180

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Book Description
This book analyses three key aspects of microfinancing, namely social purpose, commercialization and innovations and examines, through a global perspective, how these aspects helped and diverted microfinance institutions towards the attainment of their dual goals over the last twenty years. Since microfinance remains informal in nature for most economies, not all financial innovations are suitable for its needs. Hence, the arguments in the book put forth an important challenge to the advocates of innovations and subsequently highlight why MFIs should be cautious when integrating innovations to ensure its original promise. The book is based on empirical analysis by utilising the latest and global microfinance market data, rather than focusing on a specific region. Thus, the book bridges a gap in knowledge by unravelling detail of the social purpose, commercialization and innovations within the field of microfinance and will be a valuable resource for those exploring the dynamics of innovations in microfinance.