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> Posted by Andrew Fixler, Associate, CFI
Inclusive financial services in Africa are blooming. Between the turn of the millennium and 2011, the number of African MFIs reporting to the MIX increased from 58 to 397. From 2000 to 2014, the gross loan portfolio expanded over tenfold to $6 billion. Between 2003 and 2009, the number of borrowers served by MFIs in Africa increased from 1.6 million to 8.5 million. These numbers represent the development of an economic development tool for economies with very small financial sectors. It is impressive progress for an undeveloped industry beset by sparse human capital, problematic governance, and minimal external commercial interest.
AfriCap, which was the first private equity fund to invest exclusively in African microfinance institutions, and other microfinance investment vehicles (MIVs) funded by social investors have been a key growth factor through capitalizing MFIs and offering technical assistance and training. This interest is relatively new. The African MIV portfolio grew at an average annual rate of 36 percent between 2006 and 2013. This compares with an average growth of 38 percent for investments in the Latin America & Caribbean region since 2006, and 8 percent in both the Middle East & North Africa and South East Asia regions. The strong connection between MIV financing and microfinance sector growth was also noted in a World Bank paper, Benchmarking the Financial Performance, Growth, and Outreach of Greenfield Microfinance Institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa. The paper, released in 2014, explains the relevance of greenfield MFIs to effecting financial inclusion in undeveloped financial markets. These institutions are financed in large part by equity and debt from development finance institutions, as well as a now-significant cohort of MIVs.
> Posted by Michiel Sallaets, Communications Manager, Incofin Investment Management
To continue Sri Lanka’s development in its post-war, post-tsunami era, it’s essential that greater investments be made in the country’s agriculture sector and in its financial services for the base of the pyramid.
In Sri Lanka, about 80 percent of the population lives in rural areas. Agriculture is the main source of income for these people and many of them work at the smallholder level. Loans are necessary for farmers to adequately invest in seeds, fertilizers, tools, and other productive inputs. Loans can also prove instrumental in compensating for the occasional inadequate harvest. Yet, the proportion of people who have taken out loans in Sri Lanka in the past year is a dismal 9 percent. Only 22 percent of the population in the past year has saved in a financial institution.
> Posted by Danielle Piskadlo, Manager, Investing in Inclusive Finance, 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.
You may have noticed an uptick in headlines over the past few months announcing the selling of microfinance equity shares. Here are a few examples: Accion sells 15 percent stake in Paraguay’s El Comercio to Incofin’s Rural Impulse Fund; Grupo ACP sells its 60.68 percent stake in Peru’s MiBanco to Edyficar; Triodos sells stake in Cambodia’s ACLEDA Bank to ORIX Corporation.
Expect to see more such headlines, as the number of exits from microfinance equity investments is anticipated to accelerate in the next couple of years as a result of a combination of different factors:
- Equity funds are maturing. Many funds were created around the same time and while some have no official time horizon, even patient capital reaches a point when it is time to consider moving on.
- Microfinance institutions (MFIs) are also maturing. Thanks to the patient capital and expertise of many initial microfinance investors, some MFIs are now so large and sophisticated that they need new investors with deeper pockets and different expertise to further their growth and development.
- Social investors are moving into new frontiers. Some social investors are reevaluating where their equity funding and participation can have the biggest impact, for example by moving into more rural or poorer countries. In a number of countries, regulatory environments are becoming friendlier to foreign microfinance investors now that they have a more proven track record.
Given that many social investors are seeking to pass the baton, what does it mean to exit an investment responsibly?
The freshly released paper, The Art of the Responsible Exit in Microfinance Equity Sales, dissects exactly this question. The paper, a joint effort of the Center for Financial Inclusion at Accion (CFI) and the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP), shares the thoughts and experiences of 50 investors and industry stakeholders on the topic of exiting an investment in a “responsible” manner.
What did we uncover?
> 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 Alexandra Rizzi, Deputy Director, the Smart Campaign
Over 165 investors and donors have endorsed the Smart Campaign and the Client Protection Principles. But our Campaign staff wanted to dig deeper: what does this support mean in practice? Are investors using the Client Protection Principles in their everyday work? How? Earlier this year, we embarked on a project to find out.
The Campaign worked with three Virtual Volunteers from Credit Suisse – Lloyd Yetton, Meha Jain, and Nicolas Vucekovic – to create a short survey aimed at understanding how investors incorporate client protection into their due diligence, post-investment monitoring, and reporting. The virtual volunteers spoke with representatives from 12 of the leading microfinance investors.¹ The findings, highlighted below, will help the Campaign shape its engagement with this pivotal stakeholder group.
Client Protection Universally Important But Not Uniformly Applied
All the investors interviewed stated that client protection was important to them from both a social perspective and for their bottom line. Most had seen first-hand the positive influence from strong client protection practices as well as the problems and instability that sprang up in their absence. Such universal recognition is an encouraging step forward from earlier days of the Campaign. In addition to understanding the importance of client protection, nearly all respondents said that client protection was already explicitly incorporated into due diligence. Investors are indeed scrutinizing a microfinance institution’s client protection practices before investing in it.
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