You are currently browsing the monthly archive for May 2009.
> Posted by Sergio Guzmán
Do you read the fine print of all contracts, forms, etc, before you sign? If you said yes, I don’t believe you. I confess that before working on the issue of consumer protection, I did not read the fine print of forms that I filled out. It didn’t bother me to sign first and read later, if I felt like it. And, if I had concerns about the points made in the contract, I never thought much good would come from asking. That’s precisely because so many contacts and forms are not negotiable—either you sign and agree to all the clauses or you don’t and give up the product or service.
It was only after I started working on client protection that I realized how much I am taking for granted the “rights” I enjoy as a consumer. The Six Principles of Client Protection that are the core of the Campaign for Client Protection in Microfinance are as applicable to me as they are the microfinance clients. And, one of the principles resonates more clearly now with me than before: privacy of data.
For instance, the life insurance form (which I actually read from start to finish) that I am filling out right now literally says: “I grant the company, or who may represent its rights, permanent and irrevocable access to use any information of technical, financial and commercial character and process, keep, consult, provide, report or update the information for statistic, control, supervisory, technical insurance, commercial, and financial purposes as deemed convenient by Information Registries or Databases starting the moment the insurance form is completed and during the time established by the database system, norms and pertinent authorities. The consequence of this authorization will be to include my information in such database.”
> Posted by Kelley Mesa
That’s us tweeting. You can now follow the Center for Financial Inclusion on Twitter. Just click here: http://twitter.com/cfi_accion
Share it with your friends. Just say a little birdie told you.
> Posted by Kelley Mesa
The latest edition to the Consumer Protection Library provides an overview of the legal and regulatory for consumer protection in Peru.
Here’s the executive summary:
As one of the fastest growing economies in Latin America, Peru has experienced remarkable and sustained economic growth since the early nineties. The economic changes Peru has experienced during this time have directly affected its consumers. Consequently, Peru has strived to strengthen its consumer protection framework. The enactment of a Consumer Protection Law in 1991 pushed consumer protection into the spotlight for the businesses and people of Peru.
- Peru’s General Law of the Financial and Insurance Systems includes statutes that strive to protect clients through provisions demanding privacy and avoid over-indebtedness of the financial services client.
- The Consumer Protection Law for Financial Service Clients establishes a strong framework that calls for transparency, ethical staff behavior, privacy of client data and mechanisms for redress of grievances.
- SBS, Peru’s Banking Superintendent, seeks to minimize consumer grievances through preventative measures, while INDECOPI and DCF are among the agencies providing mechanisms for the redress of client grievances.
> Read more about consumer protection in Peru
> Check out all the country profiles in the library
> Posted by Jonathan Morduch
Billions of people around the world live on less than $2 a day—an amount most of us could likely dig out of our couch cushions. It’s hard to imagine what it would be like to scrape by on so small an income: how would you put food on the table, keep a roof over your head, plan for medical emergencies, or save for retirement?
A new book that I co-authored with Daryl Collins, Stuart Rutherford and Orlanda Ruthven tackles these fundamental questions. Portfolios of the Poor: How the World’s Poor Live on $2 a Day grew out of the sense that there’s lots of talk these days about global poverty, but we don’t often hear the ideas and strategies of the poor themselves.
The book began with a simple plan to listen and learn. In 1999 Stuart spent a year tracking the spending habits and financial lives of residents of the Dhaka slums where he works with SafeSave, the Bangladesh microbank he founded. He made biweekly visits to select families and recorded “diaries” that tracked–penny by penny–how these families managed their money. Most residents lived on less than $2 a day and earned their livings through a patchwork of odd jobs and self-employment activities. Yet Stuart’s diaries revealed that rather than a hand-to-mouth existence, these families borrowed and saved with an eye towards the future. Read the rest of this entry »
> Posted by Kelley Mesa
The Microfinance Centre has released a new publication on the level of financial inclusion in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. The publication is available for download here: Inclusive Finance – The State of Microfinance in ECA. 2008 Edition.
The topics covered include access to and use of various financial services, flows of remittances, market for microinsurance, supply of microcredit and saving services by MFIs at the end of 2007 and social performance of NGOs/NBFIs. Following is an overview of the paper (courtesy of the Microfinance Centre).
Access to Financial Services
In the ECA region physical accessibility of banking services varies from country to country. In European Union countries (New Member States), access to banking services is generally better with Hungary having the best bank branches penetration and Slovenia and Estonia the best distribution of ATMs among the population. Lithuania has the poorest outreach in terms of branches but makes up for it by the number of ATMs. Balkans and non-EU countries lag behind with banking sector penetration, except Croatia where access to bank branches and ATMs is better than in the majority of NMS-EU countries. Read the rest of this entry »
> Posted by Brian Clancy
We recently had a very exciting couple of days for the Center and our partners during the meeting of the Center’s Faculty and Advisory Councils. When you bring the best people around a table you can expect to be challenged – and we at the Center celebrate that commitment to candor and continuous improvement!
The Center’s Faculty Council explored a variety of compelling initiatives and proposals including the creation of the first Microfinance textbooks at the undergraduate and graduate level, a summer internship research project, a consumer protection library, and microfinance education programs for executives and law schools. Some of these are well underway and others just in the initial planning stages, but they all demonstrate the commitment and creativity of the faculty team we’ve been fortunate enough to assemble. The remarkable institutions directly involved in the efforts above include Wharton, BU, Berkley, the Harvard Business School, Lehigh, and the Yale Law School. For a complete listing of the faculty council’s institutions, please click here.
The next milestone for the week was having our first joint session of the Faculty Council and the Advisory Council. This was a great opportunity to bring together the leading lights from academia, business leaders from global financial institutions, and thought leaders from the microfinance field. As expected, the discussions were extremely insightful and we all agreed to include sessions like this in our annual schedule going forward.
Specifics covered in the joint session and the closed Advisory session that followed included the Center’s consumer protection initiative, a presentation on Read the rest of this entry »
> Posted by Elisabeth Rhyne
President Obama nominated María Otero as Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs in the State Department.
Over the last few decades, I’ve seen microfinance emerge from a little-known development strategy, to the household word it is today. During that time, a number of people played key roles in this transformation and molding of the industry, one of them being my friend María Otero, ACCION president and CEO. Her contributions to microfinance and to the vision of making financial inclusion scalable and sustainable have now led her to a wonderful new opportunity to make a difference in the world.
This week President Obama nominated María as Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs in the State Department. In this role she would coordinate U.S. foreign relations on a wide variety of global issues, including democracy, human rights, and labor; environment, oceans, health and science; population, refugees, and migration; and trafficking in persons.
While we are sad to see her leave, we are proud that María’s and ACCION’s work promoting financial inclusion and economic justice around the world is recognized through such a significant appointment. Read the rest of this entry »
> Posted by Kimberly Williams Weinrick and Meghan Gallagher
While the New York spring rain outside was slowing down, inside at the May 7 evening dicussion “Macro to Micro: Performance of Investments in Microfinance in the Current Financial Crisis” there were energetic and insightful attendees from many different backgrounds, professions, and perspectives, adding to the buzz in the room resonating with dynamic conversations.
The evening included a lively and broad-ranging panel that examined the story of how a sector whose chief purpose is to supply small loans to those without collateral or access to traditional financial services is at once maturing and reshaping itself during this time of turmoil. And the panel did not disappoint.
Beginning with an after-work networking reception in Midtown Manhattan, the microfinance program enjoyed a big crowd. Once the panel was introduced, it was clear that the exceptional participants would bring illumination and understanding to this evolving landscape. These panelists were: Roland Dominicé, Executive Director, Symbiotics; Ann Miles, Managing Director, BlueOrchard Finance, S.A.; Camilla Nestor, Director, Grameen Foundation; Susanna K. Tisa, Managing Director, FINCA International; and Mitchell Strauss, Special Advisor SME Finance & Director of Credit Policy, Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC).
The insightful discussions focused on how microfinance institutions Read the rest of this entry »
> Posted by Robin Ratcliffe
Robin Ratcliffe
I’ve been thinking a lot about the enormous challenge we are undertaking at the Center – leading the development of the Campaign for Client Protection in Microfinance. As the Campaign Director, taking on the leadership of a worldwide Campaign for anything is a huge opportunity and challenge. Taking it on for something as important as the ultimate welfare of microfinance clients and their families is an enormous responsibility! So I knew from the start that we needed to rally strong support from microfinance leaders to guide our work and to help us spread the word about the Campaign.
Recruiting the members of the Campaign Steering Committee has been a really rewarding experience – and one that points to an industry-wide shared commitment to the clients we serve. Not a single nominee declined to serve, highlighting, I think, the interest globally in setting high standards for client service and treatment. In fact, how about making the microfinance industry the standard bearer for consumer protection and an example for the mainstream financial services sector? We now have 28 members on the Committee, all well-regarded leaders, selected from around the world. They represent individual MFIs, country and regional associations, international networks, investors, donors, and regulators. Read the rest of this entry »
> Posted by Charlotte Connors
The Center for Financial Inclusion’s Faculty and Advisory Councils met last week in Washington, DC for an inspiring bi-annual meeting on our progress towards financial inclusion and our 2009 initiatives. Members of the Faculty Council represent some of the most prestigious business and law schools around the country, and last week’s meeting provided us with a inside look at what they are doing and how it relates to the microfinance industry.
Here’s what’s going on at the crossroads of business and law schools and microfinance:
Professor Todd Watkins (back row, fourth from right) and students with microfinance clients in Peru. Todd Watkins and his students are working on a microfinance textbook.
- Don Terry, remittance expert, joined the Faculty Council representing Boston University Law School. As an initial project lead by ACCION staff attorney Virginia Valdez, Mr. Terry, Faculty Council member George Priest from Yale Law School, and ACCION staff member Kevin Saunders are considering developing a microfinance course for law students that would cover the legal framework and regulatory systems within the microfinance industry.
- Todd Watkins, from the Economics Department at Lehigh University, has engaged his students in a 2-year project to write a microfinance textbook to be used for undergraduate study. They plan to edit the book during the summer of 2009 and eventually make it available online.
- Keith Weigelt and his students at the Wharton School of Business are also helping the CFI to develop its Consumer Protection Library for the Read the rest of this entry »
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