Posts Tagged ‘business’
Posted on June 24, 2009 - by Gavin
Microlender Kiva matches individuals with U.S. entrepreneurs who seek funding…
News Room Jersey
SAN FRANCISCO — Microfinance is a big focus in the international
development world. It’s the process of getting small loans and
financial services to the poor and underserved. And it’s not just
global institutions like the Grameen Bank that make those loans.
There are a number of Web sites that help individual Internet
users fund entrepreneurs from Kenya to Cambodia.
Now, one of the biggest, Kiva.org, is allowing users to make
microloans to small business owners, like Vika Sinipata, in the
United States.
An idea for a business is not enough
In January, the human resources professional fulfilled a longtime
dream. She opened her own business, assisting the elderly. She
got the idea for it after taking care of her own relatives. What
she couldn’t get was a line of credit.
Posted on June 11, 2009 - by Gavin
Road map prepared for micro businesses…
The Jakarta Post
The Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin) is drawing up measures to empower small and micro businesses, including efforts to address problems of limited access to financing.
The measures would be derived from inputs from relevant stakeholders – small and micro businesses, the banking sector and regulators – and put together under a road map for MSMEs, Kadin deputy chairman for small and medium enterprises and cooperatives Sandiaga S. Uno said Wednesday.
“Most of the country’s more than 40 million micro, small and medium enterprises have little or no access to bank loans. The reasons vary from tight regulations on collateral necessities, to high interest rates,” Sandiaga said after a Kadin technical meeting to discuss the concept of the road map.
The country’s micro, small and medium businesses have proven their resilience amid waves of economic crises.
During the 1997-1998 Asian financial crisis, Indonesia’s small and micro businesses – which account for about 65 percent of the country’s enterprises – stood firm and continued to grow at a time when the government laid out costly bailout programs for large and internationally-recognized companies. (more…)
Posted on June 11, 2009 - by Gavin
Microcredit and microfinance the solution to Yemen’s employment problem…
Yemen Times
SANA’A, June 10 — While the percentage of unemployment in Yemen varies from one source to another, official statistics indicate that it is no less than 16 percent. Independent sources such as NGOs and research centers emphasize that such a percentage is not realistic.
“The Ministry of Planning announced in 2004 that Yemen’s unemployment rate is 37 percent, and then in 2006 Prime Minister Ba Jammal said this rate was reduced to 18 percent. But all these figures are below the realistic estimate of at least 35 percent, which means that one in three job seeking Yemenis is unemployed,” said economist Taher Mujahid Al-Salehi from the Yemeni Research and Studies Center.
Meanwhile, in a recent official report the Yemeni government admitted the failure of its employment strategy to reduce unemployment to 12 percent by 2010.
The report, issued by the Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation, said that unemployment had remained at about 16 percent between 2006 and 2007.
According to the report, limited investment opportunity hampered efforts to create new jobs and meet labor market needs. The report pinned the plan’s failure on the Yemeni economy’s inability to provide new jobs for youth. (more…)
Posted on June 11, 2009 - by Gavin
Launch of a New Employment Strategy…
Independent Online
A new strategy of benefit to small and medium enterprises around Europe was launched last week by the European Commission in a bid to tackle unemployment resulting from the global recession. The growing rate of unemployment across Europe, which is estimated to hover around 25 million people in Europe by 2010, pressed the European Union to seek the optimal solutions to combat this mass unemployment.
The fund support of this new plan, entitled Shared Commitment for Employment, is making available e19 billion of expenditure. This scheme seeks to assist people hit by the economic crisis in 2009-2010 alone. Furthermore, the European Commission is also willing to back both EU Member States and social partners for the creation of rapid reaction packages that are focused more on job creation. In other words, the EU needs a new strengthened cooperation between all the key actors, including the EU institutions, Member States, trade unions and employers.
The key principles of such packages will help to preserve jobs and to pave the way to recovery for those facing difficulties. Furthermore, the European Commission is expected to relieve Member States’ commitment to co-finance projects for the coming months. (more…)
Posted on June 9, 2009 - by Gavin
New corporation to lend money to Colombia’s poor…
Colombia Reports
A new corporation intended to support poor families in Colombia has been created during the Regional Summit on Microfinancing in the city of Cartagena de Indias.
The bank will be known as Grameen Aval Colombia corporation and received a three million dollar starting capital of the Luis Carlos Sarmiento Angulo Foundation, whose namegiver, Luis Carlos Sarmiento Angulo, is Colombia’s richest man.
The idea of the fund came from Nobel Peace Prize 2006 winner, Bangladeshi Professor Muhammad Yunus, who has experimented with the micro-loans in his own country and other Asian nations and knew to achieve a positive impact in marginalized communities.
Grameen, a Bangladeshi word that stands for “village”, because the main benefesaries are farm families, has been proven already in Guatemala and Costa Rica. (more…)
Posted on June 8, 2009 - by Gavin
Microfinancing benefits 51,000 Quezon City residents…
Manila Bulletin
The Quezon City microfinance program has benefitted 51, 000 borrowers with the release of approximately P800 million in loans to small entrepreneurs since its inception in 2002.
Dr. Larraine Sarmiento, head of the Sikap Buhay Entrepreneurship and Cooperative Office (SB ECO) attributed the success of the project mainly to the city government’s resiliency to provide sufficient livelihood to the urban poor and unemployed sector.
She noted that majority who are included in the 18-year-old and above bracket have always wanted to be employed especially during these times of crisis.
However, Sarmiento advised the jobseekers not to be discouraged by failures in past job applications particularly in interviews saying that engaging in business may be a good option.
Sarmiento who also heads the Quezon City Anti-Poverty Integration Task Force also reminded jobseekers that the Sikap Buhay program has now nine conduits to cater to their microfinance needs for small scale businesses.
Posted on June 5, 2009 - by Gavin
MICROCAPITAL STORY: International Finance Corporation (IFC) Invests over $514m in Micro Small and Medium Enterprise (MSME) Initiatives During 2008…
Microcapital
The International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, provides investment and advisory services to developing countries. Created in 1956, the IFC seeks to foster sustainable economic growth by supporting private sector development, mobilizing private capital, and providing advisory and risk mitigation services to businesses and governments. Within its Global Financial Markets sector, the IFC supports microfinance in order to promote successful and sustainable economies in low and middle income countries.
The IFC provides direct and indirect investment and advisory services to the microfinance sector. Its focus is on creating and supporting commercially viable microfinance institutions (MFIs) that can attract private capital thereby responding to unmet demand for micro loans. Furthermore it seeks to demonstrate the business case for commercial microfinance and also promote it as an asset class to private institutional investors. During 2008 the IFC invested USD 513.8 million in micro small and medium enterprise (MSME) initiatives and provided USD 840,000 worth of advisory services. Following is detailed information about IFCs activities in the microfinance arena.
The IFC together with Citi, a global financial institution, supported the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) with a local currency facility to expand lending to micro, small and medium enterprise (SME) customers in February 2008. The IFC USD 18 million facility was made available in Bangladeshi taka, its first investment in BRAC. Through this loan BRAC will reduce its dependence on grants and expand further to women borrowers. (more…)
Posted on June 4, 2009 - by Gavin
Our mission is to provide finance for Nigeria’s SMEs, micro enterprises –Egegele…
The Daily Sun
Even when the Nigerian economy was very buoyant, raising seed capital for startups for a typical small or medium- scale business posed so much challenge for most entrepreneurs. The enormousness of this challenge has, however, increased with dawn of the global financial meltdown as commercial bank credit is no longer easy to come by.
But as a people, Nigerians seem to have ingenious ways of handling difficult tasks and responsibilities facing them.
Today, for instance, money lenders are bracing up to the challenges of financing small businesses that commercial banks and micro finance institutions are scared to assist as entrepreneurs are now leveraging on the trade which is as old as human society to solve their funding needs.
But after seven years of financing the nation’s un-banked population, one of the operators, boasts he has the capacity to lift the nation’s micro enterprises sector with loans to make dreams of a vibrant SME a reality.
In a recent encounter with Daily Sun, Mr Frank Egegele, a Lagos-based “money lender” and managing director and chief executive of “Cash and Be Wise Company Limited,” a private limited liability outfit, that specializes in providing soft, short- term loans to entrepreneurs assured that the funding pains of Nigerian businesses are over, stressing that he was committed to bringing succour to millions of Nigerian businesses abandoned by the banks. (more…)
Posted on June 3, 2009 - by Gavin
Micro-credit : Creating real jobs and business in Lyon France…
Digital Journal
Micro-credit has been around a long while of course, and became a household name with the advent of the Grameen Bank, a major player in this field.
Micro-credit exists in many countries and as such doesn’t have a universally defined description due to the differing needs and cultures of the countries in which it is active.
France’s main micro-credit organism is the Adie Association for the Right to Economic Initiative. It was created in 1989 as a small outfit by its present-day President, Maria Nowak, and has since generated the creation of many thousands of small businesses.
One of the criticisms levelled at micro-credit has been that it is no more than a privatisation of public safety-net initiatives and programmes but Adie has overcome this via its statute as an association, which, in France, means it isn’t a private business in the normal sense of the word. This statute also gives it access to many collaborative actions with the authorities. (more…)
Posted on June 1, 2009 - by Gavin
Why we are setting up academy for microfinance – LAPO BOSS…
Business Day Online
LAPO, one of the nation’s foremost microfinance institutions, recently unveiled an academy for Microfinance and Enterprise Development in Benin City , its operational headquarters. Godwin Ehigiamusoe, the company’s executive director, tells IDRIS UMAR MOMOH, the rationale behind the initiative among other issues. Excerpts:Decision to establish academy
The decision to establish the academy was informed by the primacy of training to the development of any sector. For microfinance, the need to invest in capacity is compelling in the sense that, it is a fledging industry at least in Nigeria . Actors in the microfinance sector will readily admit that a major challenge to microfinance practice is lack of trained personnel. We believe we are well placed to make contributions to the development of the sector drawing on our long involvement in the sector.
Targets
It is important to note that the activities of the academy date to 1996 when LAPO, in preparation for the scaling-up of its operations, established what is known as LAPO Development Services to train its staff. We simply transferred the activities of the company to the academy as we improved our training facility. Therefore, LAPO is the prime client of the academy. Also for obvious reason of our experience in microfinance, we receive several requests from microfinance banks and institutions for training and technical support. The academy with its enhanced facility will be able to satisfy these requests. (more…)
Posted on May 29, 2009 - by Gavin
How microlending helps communities…
San Francisco Chronicle
Providing small loans to help the poor start or expand businesses is an effective strategy for helping communities ravaged by the recession as well as expanding the overall economy, according to speakers at a conference Thursday.
“In the midst of a depressing downward economic spiral, microfinances are a real ray of hope,” said Eric Weaver, chief executive officer of the Opportunity Fund, a sponsor of the Microfinance California event held at Stanford University. “It’s a wonderful system for generating wealth and organizing economic activity.”
Microfinance lenders like Opportunity Fund provide small loans along with business coaching to low-income entrepreneurs. With a median loan size of $5,000, the San Jose nonprofit claims to create or retain two jobs per business on average.
The survival rate in the United States for such companies is roughly comparable to those of traditional small businesses, according to a survey of studies by the Aspen Institute’s Field program, a microenterprise research group in Washington.
It’s likely to be a growing investment area, as the Obama administration has directed more than $100 million in new funds toward programs that make loans to low-income individuals, including the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund. (more…)
Posted on May 28, 2009 - by Gavin
Credit crisis is nothing new for the developing world…
Minn Post.com
The urgency with which the Obama administration, members of Congress, and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke have been working to keep credit available reminds us how critical credit is to the economy. These folks know that without widely available credit, our economy would descend into a debilitating depression.
It’s easy to forget that most of our homes, cars and college educations are paid for with borrowed money, as is much business and government spending. Without credit, only those few with ample cash would be able to buy much of anything.
To see an economy without credit, go to the developing world — where credit is a privilege of the wealthy, but a pipe dream for the vast majority. Without widely available credit to prime their economies, many developing countries suffer rampant poverty, with 70 percent of their populations living on less than $2 a day. Large blocks of society (women, the indigenous) are denied access to formal banks, so for them a credit crisis is the norm. Without credit to fund an education, start a small business or buy farmland, these groups are trapped in poverty. (more…)
Posted on May 28, 2009 - by Gavin
Grameen America Launches Branch in Omaha, Nebraska…
Business Wire
OMAHA, Neb.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Grameen America (www.grameenamerica.com), a microfinance institution headquartered in New York and founded by Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, announced today that it will launch its next branch in Omaha, Nebraska. The move to Omaha comes as Grameen America begins expanding nationally to build on its initial success in Queens, New York.
Grameen America selected Omaha as its second branch location because of strong local support and demand for microfinance services. The branch will initially serve the low-income community in South Omaha and will subsequently expand operations to other areas. The company expects to extend loans to at least 250 borrowers in its first year of operations. Future projections call for the branch to grow its borrower base and become a fully sustainable social business in five years.
Grameen America CEO Stephen Vogel, who took the helm of the organization after a successful business and investing career, said: “Grameen America is thrilled to be opening in Omaha. In less than eighteen months after opening in Queens, we have seen our borrowers show their willingness and ability to take control of their lives, their financial positions, and their futures. With Grameen America, they are creating a culture of trust, savings, and hard work and building better lives for themselves and their children. (more…)
Posted on May 28, 2009 - by Gavin
Rwanda: Country Gets Private Credit Bureau…
All Africa.com
Kigali — The private CRB is expected to reduce the Non Performing Loan (NPL) portfolios and also increase access of credit by the private sector
Banks and financial institutions in Rwanda will soon share data with each other, according to Michael Malan, the Managing Director, of Compuscan, a newly established credit bureau.
A Credit Reference Bureau (CRB) is an entity that collects and compiles information concerning the repayment behavior of individual and business, for resale to banks and other credit providers.
“To a large degree we rely on the media to help the public understand the benefits of this project,” said Malan, who was sensitising journalists about the benefits of the Credit Bureau at Laico Umubano hotel on Monday.
Compuscan has been authorised by the National Bank of Rwanda (BNR) to develop, operate and maintain a Credit Bureau in Rwanda under a three year exclusive agreement.
In Rwanda it will operate in such a way that a customer provides information when opening an account or applying for credit, the customer then signs “acknowledgements/consents” to allow information to be submitted to credit bureau. (more…)
Posted on May 25, 2009 - by Gavin
Micro loans from S’poreans changing lives…
Asia One News
IN AZERBAIJAN, south of Russia, Ms Qatiba Jafarova has bought two cows to expand her home-grown dairy business – aided by cash loans from Singaporeans she has never met.
The 47-year-old is one of the many beneficiaries of loans made by a growing number of Singaporeans involved in microfinance, a system of lending money to the working poor who do not qualify for bank loans because of insufficient collateral.
A “Team Singapore” group set up last August on microfinance website Kiva – www.kiva.org – has already garnered 74 members.
They have lent out almost US$10,000 (S$14,400) to start-ups in countries as far away as Peru, with no interest earned or repayment guaranteed. (more…)
Posted on May 21, 2009 - by Gavin
Bentley Students Try Microfinancing In Their Own Backyard…
WBUR
WALTHAM, Mass. — A group of students at Bentley University is trying to do something no students in the country have been able to do successfully: use a model for lending to the poor that has worked well in developing countries, but not so well in this country. The Bentley Microfinance Initiative is designed to make loans to poor entrepreneurs in the Boston area.
When Sarah Kovacic helped to create a micro-lending program at Bentley University last year, she learned that making small loans to poor entrepreneurs is easier in poor countries.
“You don’t have all those regulations, you don’t have the taxes” Kovacic said. “And also you’re not competing against WalMarts and Walgreens and your Targets and all of those. And so it’s so much easier for a new entrepreneur to start up a stand and sell their homemade clothing or quilts or something like that.”
The program being created by Kovacic and other students is the first one of its kind in the U.S. Tufts University has a $100-million microfinance initiative, but it’s for international loans. Bentley’s is the only one run by students, and the beneficiaries will be Boston-area entrepreneurs who can’t qualify for bank loans. The students have $300,000 to lend.
Posted on May 19, 2009 - by Gavin
Wickman students lend money to help entrepreneurs…
Contra Costa Times
CHINO HILLS – A new program at Wickman Elementary School is helping students learn business skills and the value of global partnership.For the past two years, Wickman Elementary sixth-graders have been participating in a microfinance loan program to help struggling entrepreneurs in developing countries start businesses of their own.
The students earn the money back from the profits acquired by the entrepreneurs.
Funds for the loans were provided by students who were asked to donate money for the program that would normally be used for a Christmas gift, said Wickman Elementary Principal Rob Clements.
The program is under the Kiva organization, which connects lenders to the entrepreneurs through its Web site kiva.org.
The Wickman Elementary initially participated through a combination fifth- and sixth-grade class taught by John Setterland. (more…)
Posted on May 19, 2009 - by Gavin
Globe heightens remittance, microfinance businesses…
Philstar.com
MANILA, Philippines – Globe Telecommunications is increasing its involvement in the microfinance and remittance business.
According to Globe Telecommunications (Globe) president Ernest L. Cu, the telecommunications company is seeking the approval of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) to be able to accept and disburse cash sourced from overseas Filipinos.
The outlets for accepting and disbursing remittances will be done through its over 15,000 Globe dealers and distributors.
“The goal this year, with the blessings of the BSP, is to enable our 15,000 plus dealers nationwide, to become cash-in, cash out points,” Cu said.
If the BSP does not give its approval, Globe’s distribution centers can only disburse per transaction amounts not more than P40,000 as required by international standards combating money laundering. “For us, the higher the amount, the better,” he added.
Globe would also like to simplify the requirements for receiving or sending the remittances by doing away or simplifying the Know Your Customer (KYC) requirements. (more…)
Posted on May 13, 2009 - by Gavin
Global lenders pledge billions for Africa…
Business Day
MULTILATERAL lenders have pledged $15bn to support trade, strengthen the financial sector and increase lending for infrastructure, agribusiness and small enterprises in Africa.
Announced at the annual meeting of the African Development Bank (ADB) board of directors in Dakar yesterday, the increased support is part of a co-ordinated response to help regions affected by the global economic slowdown and help stem the reversal of investment in Africa.
The ADB has pooled resources together with the European Investment Bank (EIB), the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) and the French Development Agency to lend support to private sector investment projects to spur growth.
Announcing the joint international finance institutions’ action plan, ADB president Donald Kaberuka said the severity of the challenge facing the continent was unprecedented: “It took us decades to get where we are but six months to go from (economic growth of) 7% to 3%, and we are not sure that for us this crisis is not at its beginning.” (more…)
Posted on May 4, 2009 - by Gavin
DOMSA: Empowering Entrepreneurs for Job Creation…
Vanguard Online
Realising that its mission to build a stronger Nigeria cannot be achieved without significant dent on the pervasive and widespread poverty in the country, Oceanic Bank and Delta State Government have entered into a partnership to eradicate poverty through micro credit scheme, Babajide Komolafe writes
It started with a micro credit scheme earlier instituted by state government through which funds are disbursed to the people (in cluster groups) with visible means of livelihood, especially the local entrepreneurs to empower them and through them create more jobs. The intention of the scheme is for the local entrepreneurs most of whom are engaged in cottage industries, to have access to funds to produce, expand, employ and explore the export potentials of their products.
As the implementation of the scheme progressed, the state government, taking a cue from the failure of past poverty alleviation programmes, saw the need to nip in the bud some observed challenges which can derail it.
The state government therefore decided to energize the scheme by bringing in private sector expertise and the regulatory authority’s supervisory skill. In this regard, the Oceanic Bank International plc and the Central Bank of Nigeria were brought into the scheme to take over the coordination to ensure that the fight against poverty was unadulterated, and that the scheme did not turn out to be a mere political exercise. (more…)
The MiFi Report
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