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> Posted by Danielle Piskadlo, Senior Program Specialist, CFI
The Investing in Inclusive Finance program at the Center for Financial Inclusion at Accion explores the practices of investors in inclusive finance. Across areas including risk, governance, stakeholder alignment, and fund management, this blog series highlights what’s being done to help the industry better utilize private capital to develop financial institutions that incorporate social aims.
The Council of Microfinance Equity Funds (CMEF) was recently renamed the Financial Inclusion Equity Council (FIEC) in order to reflect both the evolving nature of the industry and Council membership.
In my recent interview with Jim Kaddaras on the landscape of microfinance equity investing in 2003, it quickly became evident that in some respects much has changed over the past decade, while in other ways many of Jim’s comments still ring very true today.
Different Context:
Since 2003, like the expanding industry, Council membership has both grown in numbers and also changed in composition. For instance, a few direct financial service providers have joined the Council as they have now started to invest equity regionally.
Likewise, as impact investing has become far more mainstream in the last decade, some members (e.g. Triodos Organic Growth Fund and responsAbility Fair Trade Fund) have increasingly started to invest in adjacent impact investments. These investments go beyond traditional microfinance to include agriculture, housing, energy, etc. However, microfinance is still by far the majority of most Council members’ portfolio – and also the main proven model for returns.
In addition to the advent of new adjacent impact investment funds, the Council now increasingly has other “beyond microfinance” topics on its agenda, including disruptive technologies and the incredible potential for mobile banking given the now ubiquitous presence of mobile phones. Read the rest of this entry »
> Posted by Danielle Piskadlo, Senior Program Specialist, CFI
The Investing in Inclusive Finance program at the Center for Financial Inclusion at Accion explores the practices of investors in inclusive finance. Across areas including risk, governance, stakeholder alignment, and fund management, this blog series highlights what’s being done to help the industry better utilize private capital to develop financial institutions that incorporate social aims.
In 2003, the Council of Microfinance Equity Funds (CMEF) was formed by a handful of equity investors in microfinance with the goal of sharing, developing, and disseminating industry best practices in equity investing.
I recently had the pleasure of catching up with Jim Kaddaras, who was Vice President of Special Projects at Accion from 2001-2003. He was instrumental in launching the CMEF in 2003, and also led the charge on the creation of Accion Investments. Jim is now a Partner at Developing World Markets, and is still a Council member.
Q: What did the landscape of microfinance equity investing look like in 2003?
Jim Kaddaras: It wasn’t much of a landscape – it was more of a scatter shot.
Accion owned stakes in some of their Latin American affiliates and Accion Investments was just launching in 2003. Procredit was a player (they were called IPC back then and their banks had separate names). FINCA had some equity investments and ShoreBank had a smattering of equity holdings.
ProFund had been around since 1995 as the first investment company focused on microfinance equity but it was winding up when the Council started. Africap was just starting, based on the ProFund model. Various other Council members, plus the development finance institutions (DFIs) and several non-profit networks, held a handful of equity investments.
Q: What was the goal of the Council when it was formed?
JK: We felt that by gathering people who had been making equity investments in a one-off way, we could help to develop and disseminate best practices in the field.
>Posted by Danielle Donza
Several years ago the Council of Microfinance Equity Funds (CMEF) created a small booklet containing governance guidelines for microfinance institutions. The booklet quickly became a minor classic: it was translated into multiple languages and dozens of MFIs used it as a guide to operations for their own boards.
Then came the 2008 global financial crisis and a number of market-specific microfinance crises in several countries. These crises served to highlight the need for strong, mission-led governance by MFIs. Lessons from these events did not alter the core principles found in the original Guidelines, but they revealed a need for greater attention to areas such as risk management and social performance. In response to these lessons, CMEF is releasing a revised version of the guidelines, “The Practice of Corporate Governance in Microfinance Institutions.” Read the rest of this entry »
>Posted by Kirsten Hansen
I once had a roommate who stored her credit cards in the freezer. When I asked her why she was hiding her Visa between packages of frozen peas and ice cream she explained that by “freezing” her credit cards, she would not be tempted to use them.
Unfortunately for lending institutions, many borrowers do not have the discipline (or perhaps the creativity) of my former roommate in confronting the temptation to overspend. In fact, the recently released 2012 “Microfinance Banana Skins: Staying Relevant”, a survey of practitioners, investors, regulators and observers in the field of microfinance, found that overindebtedness among borrowers is now seen to be the most urgent risk in the field of microfinance. Overindebtedness has replaced credit risk, which was ranked as the top concern in the 2009 and 2011 surveys. Although the overindebtedness and credit risk are very closely related, according to authors of the report, the shift to the former reflects new concerns about the state of microfinance. Read the rest of this entry »
> Posted by Danielle Donza
The Council of Microfinance Equity Funds (CMEF) and MicroFinance Network (MFN) recently surveyed their members to find out whether MFIs are paying the people who sit on MFI boards– and if so, how much.
Some observers argue that the practice of offering payment to board members will ultimately attract members with the wrong motivations. They believe that the “right” board members are willing to serve on the board for free because of their passion for the microfinance mission. In fact, this is often true: many MFIs don’t pay their board members at all – 40 percent and 25 percent, for CMEF and MFN respectively.
However, as the microfinance industry matures, and the responsibilities of governance increase, MFIs need to be prepared to compensate their directors in order to attract highly qualified board members with the knowledge to govern a financial institution well. So, it is not surprising that among those MFIs linked to CMEF and MFN the majority do provide monetary compensation. Read the rest of this entry »
> Posted by Danielle Donza
For publically traded retail banks, valuations are at historic lows. In the microfinance industry, 2011 also saw the continued compression of valuation multiples from 2009 highs, according to the recently released Global Microfinance Equity Valuation Survey, Volume Growth and Valuation Contraction. CGAP and J.P. Morgan, with support from the Council of Microfinance Equity Funds (CMEF), publish this report annually to address the scarcity of valuation data available in the public domain.
Including valuation data for both MFI private equity (PE) transactions as well as Lower Income Finance Institutions (LIFIs), which are publically listed companies providing financial services to lower-income clients, but not necessarily having a stated social mission, this report aims to provide benchmarks for the valuation of both private and publicly listed microfinance equity, promote market transparency and identify industry trends.
This year the survey finds a “wider trend where LIFI and microfinance valuations in the public and private markets are beginning to converge toward those of traditional financial institutions in emerging markets, and are probably closer to their true value.” Read the rest of this entry »
> Posted by Stephanie Dolan, Principal Specialist, Investing in Inclusive Finance
How do you recognize or quantify the time and effort that a non-profit’s founder has poured into an organization? Do you reward a non-profit’s board members for their countless hours donated to shaping the institution’s mission, and if so, how? What role does the staff have in determining the success of an organization? What skills and qualities are necessary in a manager, and what should be done if his skills set no longer meets the needs of an institution?
Such questions normally circulate beneath the surface at any operating non-profit. However, they truly come to light during periods of institutional transition, for example, during transformation to a for-profit or a merger of organizations. As these questions are often intensely personal, they have the potential to become, on the one hand, a bitter point of contention or, on the other, an opportunity for frank discussion and collaboration. Read the rest of this entry »
> Posted by Center Staff
The Council of Microfinance Equity Funds (CMEF) recently responded to the Reserve Bank of India’s invitation to comment on the Malegam Committee Report.
Sixteen members of CMEF, which brings together the leading private entities that make equity investments in MFIs in the developing world, have invested Rs. 8.1 billion (813 crores; US$178 million) of equity in Indian microfinance institutions, and other members are in negotiations with potential investee institutions. As direct investors in MFIs, CMEF members place great importance on their corporate governance role as board directors, shareholders and guardians of the double bottom line.
The CMEF concern is that “Although implementation of many of the proposed recommendations would indeed add to a sustainable development of the sector — through the enhanced institutionalization of transparency in pricing, client protection and corporate governance — it is our opinion that several recommendations could seriously set back the clock for microfinance in India.” Read the rest of this entry »
> Posted by Center Staff
The Microfinance Banana Skins report, now in its third year, reflects changing perceptions of risk in a dynamic and fast-moving industry. This year’s report shows that microfinance has come of age, and with that, new issues have arisen. In an increasing number of markets, the rapid rate of growth and outreach means that microfinance is confronting the same forces of competition, credit cycles, and consolidation seen in other sectors.
This survey explores the risks facing the microfinance industry at a time when hard questions are being asked about its future, prompted by growing doubts about its effectiveness as a source of small-scale finance for the poor.
One of the respondents summed up the significance of these doubts, saying they could “dissipate the fairy dust that has historically coated everything related to microfinance.” Many of the risks explored in this report reach the heart of the debate about where microfinance goes next. Read the rest of this entry »
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