> Posted by Center Staff
The latest edition of the Financial Inclusion 2020 News Feed, our weekly online magazine sharing the big news in banking the unbanked, is now available. Among the stories in this week’s edition are: Omidyar Network investing in eCurrency Mint, a company that has developed a new technology that enables central banks to issue digital fiat currency; FMO, the Dutch development bank, providing a five-year US$10 million loan to benefit VisionFund International’s MFIs in rural Africa; Tyler Wry, a professor of management at Wharton, discussing his research on how patriarchal power manifests itself in microfinance. Here are a few more details:
- Omidyar’s investment in eCurrency Mint was made through the firm’s Financial Inclusion Initiative. The digital fiat currency, called eCurrency, is issued by a central bank and has the same legal and monetary status as notes and coins – differentiating it from the various forms of private sector digital value available today.
- FMO’s investment in VisionFund International’s African MFI network will help support the growth of these institutions via debt capital. Additionally, FMO provided a US$275,000 capacity development grant to support VisionFund in creating an innovative approach to disaster resilient microfinance.
- In a video interview with Knowledge@Wharton, Wry discusses findings on gender and microfinance from his recent paper “Bringing Societal Institutions Back In: How Patriarchy Affects Social Outreach”. The baseline finding from the research is that when you have a high level of patriarchy in the state, in religion, in the professions, and in the family, it makes it harder for microfinance organizations to lend to them for a number of different reasons.
For more information on these and other stories, read the latest issue of the FI2020 News Feed here, and make sure to subscribe to the weekly online magazine by entering your email address in the right-hand menu so you can be notified when the latest issue comes out.
Have you come across a story or initiative you think we should cover? Email your ideas to Jeffrey Riecke at .
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December 29, 2015 at 2:38 am
Getaneh Gobezie
Dear Jeffrey I like the idea of Fiat Currency, Investingin Rural, Patriarchal Power
We recently finalized a research in saving mobilization challenges by microfinance institutions, conducting more than 60 FGDs and more individual interviews with (potential) clients as well as staff (management, field workers). This challenge from patriarchal system (perhaps completely ignored by many microfinance practitioners) has come up very often…. We have posted earlier version at microfinancegatway: http://www.microfinancegateway.org/library/overview-practical-challenges-local-saving-mobilization-ethiopian-microfinance-institutions
But we are updating this version with more current findings for publication by the Association (AEMFI/Ethiopia). I believe this is a real challenge in microfinance, as well as to the broader development initiatives, as earlier highlighted by The Economist newspaper: ‘’Not everyone has been pleased with the prospect of better financialservices for the poor. Islamic fundamentalists have bombed branches of Grameenin Bangladesh and attacked loan officers of other institutions in India.Maoists have looted microfinance offices in Nepal. The head of a microfinanceeffort in Afghanistan was murdered, possibly by drug traders. To drug lords inAfghanistan, the availability of credit is unwelcome because it gives a choiceto farmers who were previously forced to grow poppies for want of other ways tofinance their crops. For the elites in closed markets running inefficientmonopolies, credit raises the prospect of future challenges from entrepreneurs.For radical Muslims, it means that women (who in many countries make up thebulk of microfinance borrowers) are able to run viable business and becomeindependent. And for everyone in poor countries, credit can mean socialupheaval as merit and enterprise replace inheritance, family ties and position.(The Economist, Nov. 3rd, 2005).
I am happy to hear your views on these. Thanks and Regards GetanehLinkedInhttp://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=47039565&trk=wvmp-profile