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> Posted by Laura Galindo and Alexandra Rizzi, Senior Associate and Deputy Director, the Smart Campaign
A few days ago a post on this blog detailed debt collections practices in the United States. The Smart Campaign, led by Jami Solli of Consumers International, is working to shed light on provider practices in microfinance through exploratory research in Peru, India, and Uganda.
Once a client becomes seriously delinquent and moves into default, the possibilities for serious consequences for the client arise. Yet little is known about how microfinance institutions treat clients at these later stages. What alternatives do providers offer to clients who are in protracted arrears? How are clients treated when they are defaulting on multiple loans? What do clients experience during this difficult and stressful stage? And after the default, are client debt obligations resolved? Is there a concerted effort to rehabilitate or re-include defaulters?
In September, the Smart Campaign kicked off a research project to explore what happens to clients who default. The project focuses on how microfinance practitioners treat defaulting clients. It is scanning for best practices around the world – like debt mediation projects in Europe and middle-income countries – and examining practices in detail through interviews with practitioners and regulators in Peru, India, and Uganda. Interviews were also conducted with credit bureaus, debt collections agencies, consumer advocacy/protection groups, and researchers specialized in those markets. These countries were chosen, in part, because of their variation in credit bureau infrastructure and the hypothesis that this would have significant impact on provider practices.
> Posted by Jami Hubbard Solli, Senior Policy Advisor, Consumers International UK
We originally published “D” Is for Default a few weeks ago in English. We’re pleased to now share the post in French and Spanish, made possible by the Smart Campaign’s Nadia van de Walle and Laura Galindo, respectively. Read the post in French here, and in Spanish here.
What really happens to microfinance clients who do not repay their obligations?
As a late-comer to microfinance in 2005, I bustled from the Boulder training, to the Blue Book conferences, to the MicroCredit Summits (and back), trying to understand the dynamics of microcredit. At all these events, I heard proclamations of very high repayment rates, which sparked curiosity about what happened to that small percentage of borrowers who couldn’t (or wouldn’t) repay their microloans. This topic wasn’t presented at any conference I attended.
There has been industry research done on why clients default, as well as interesting work highlighting the gap between providers’ and borrowers’ perceptions and experiences related to over-indebtedness.¹ However, there is very little work done that details the actions taken by practitioners when a borrower doesn’t repay, nor on the experience for defaulting clients in the short-term, or over time.
The knowledge gaps on default management include what providers actually do, as well as what influence (if any) legal and regulatory frameworks have on industry practices. For example, what guidelines or boundaries does a country’s legal framework offer on debt collection? Is there a prescribed manner in which MFIs can collect a past due debt, including how to go about the seizure, valuation, and the sale of collaterals? Is there a limit to the length of time which a borrower is legally responsible for a debt? What are MFI practices regarding collection post write-off? Are there any insolvency or personal bankruptcy provisions available to debtors, either by law, or through voluntary debt counseling centers? More importantly, if the legal framework does exist, is it enforced? Are MFIs aware and in compliance with requirements? And, lastly, there does not appear to have been any industry research on the consequences of default from the client perspective.
> Posted by Jami Hubbard Solli, Senior Policy Advisor, Consumers International UK
Spanish Version » French Version »
What really happens to microfinance clients who do not repay their obligations?
As a late-comer to microfinance in 2005, I bustled from the Boulder training, to the Blue Book conferences, to the MicroCredit Summits (and back), trying to understand the dynamics of microcredit. At all these events, I heard proclamations of very high repayment rates, which sparked curiosity about what happened to that small percentage of borrowers who couldn’t (or wouldn’t) repay their microloans. This topic wasn’t presented at any conference I attended.
There has been industry research done on why clients default, as well as interesting work highlighting the gap between providers’ and borrowers’ perceptions and experiences related to over-indebtedness.¹ However, there is very little work done that details the actions taken by practitioners when a borrower doesn’t repay, nor on the experience for defaulting clients in the short-term, or over time.
The knowledge gaps on default management include what providers actually do, as well as what influence (if any) legal and regulatory frameworks have on industry practices. For example, what guidelines or boundaries does a country’s legal framework offer on debt collection? Is there a prescribed manner in which MFIs can collect a past due debt, including how to go about the seizure, valuation, and the sale of collaterals? Is there a limit to the length of time which a borrower is legally responsible for a debt? What are MFI practices regarding collection post write-off? Are there any insolvency or personal bankruptcy provisions available to debtors, either by law, or through voluntary debt counseling centers? More importantly, if the legal framework does exist, is it enforced? Are MFIs aware and in compliance with requirements? And, lastly, there does not appear to have been any industry research on the consequences of default from the client perspective.
The Smart Campaign is very interested in these topics, as are many practitioners we have been in touch with. Thus, this month, to kick-start a larger investigative project, CFI invited endorsers of the Smart Campaign to take part in a survey that asked MFIs about practices related to default. We believe that collection, analysis, and dialogue around such information can help the industry improve how it handles clients in arrears, and perhaps how to salvage, versus sever, relations with clients who have defaulted.
> Posted by Alexandra Rizzi, Deputy Director, the Smart Campaign
Defaulting on a loan can have very serious consequences for both financial providers and low-income families, but to-date the microfinance industry has not gathered systematic information on how financial institutions serving the poor treat defaulting clients.
While many assume that financial institutions treat defaulting clients in similar ways, anecdotally there appear to be big differences across countries and between providers. Many questions exist around what policies and practices kick into motion after a client defaults and what could drive differences in practice across or even within countries (i.e. regulation vs. culture vs. educational levels of loan officers vs. how an MFI prices for risk etc).
To begin to address this knowledge gap the Smart Campaign is launching an exploratory project to map out default management practices among providers in several key markets in order to analyze trends and determinants, and to extract good practices. But before jumping into the key markets, as an initial step the Campaign has created a basic survey for its endorsers, partners, and other interested parties to take so that we might first learn more about default management.
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