Within our own personal circles of trust, most Americans are used to lending 10 or even 1000 bucks to a friend or relative. Intimacy tends to blur the agreement and it becomes difficult to quantify the “loan.” It’s not so easy to say that a child owes their parents for having been raised, or that a friend owes another friend for a gift. This blurring is set somewhat straight when individuals draw clearer boundaries between themselves. Financial intermediaries have evolved well to serve this purpose, but the evolution continues. As of 2005, a new breed of intermediary has entered the microfinance scene – online person-to-person lending platforms. ...Read More

Turmoil tends to devastate and frighten investment. This is the unsurprising case in Iraq where unemployment, not counting underemployment, has run as high as 46 percent in just the southern provinces. Small business development will be and is critical in stabilizing the country, so what room is there for microfinance? ...Read More

The U.S. credit market has been flooded with delinquencies and foreclosures. Why? This economic flu we feel can be traced to a blend of deceptively designed sub-prime loan products and devious borrowing strategies. It is the lenders, though, that merit the bulk of the blame. ...Read More

Microfinance has been praised for its tangible contributions to poverty alleviation, but the media tends to sidestep a certain detail: what do these MFIs actually charge as interest? It’s a basic question, but the answer would likely baffle the uninformed public. Whereas credit card rates in the US typically linger below 30 percent, interest rates among MFIs can range from around 20 to 100 percent. What then, can be defined as usury? ...Read More

Stones are in limited supply, and, as always, we’re desperate for a bird or two. “What kind of return can I get on that toss?” thought the Cro-magnon man. Today, returns and happiness have been further defined, and to many they extend beyond the immediate satiating fill of a fallen crow. The same rules apply, but after having thoroughly sorted stones, stone throwers and birds, many are armed with money instead. Among other things, deepening social interactions appear to have broadened our options....Read More

Just out is the most comprehensive risk survey for the microfinance industry to date, Banana Skins, 2008. With a title that refers literally to the classic slippery threat of a strewn banana peel, the report outlines barriers to the industry’s development. ...Read More

Tuesday morning this week, Fidel Castro stirred interest in his island state by resigning as leader of Cuba. He has formally handed power to his aging brother Raul, an unsurprising move given Fidel’s hospitalization in 2006. Conspiracy theories abound and onlookers wonder if this most recent development might indicate or launch serious shifts in the country’s political and economic systems. ...Read More

To start out in this historical review, let’s note that the term microfinance asks us to imagine a very specific financial scale. At the apex of the macro world sit those individuals and conglomerates that see billions of dollars fly easily between their guiding hands. Transactions of the micro world are hardly visible in comparison, but are additionally confined to the present and recent past. ...Read More

Last Thursday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Bill Gates pushed for a shift towards creative capitalism. The term asks for the use of market forces in bridging the broadening rift between the world’s best off and worst off, and may someday dream of a glorious rise in the buzzword ranks. ...Read More