Tag Archive

Apis Partners and Accion Frontier Investments Group publish an operational framework for measuring impact in inclusive financial services investing

> Posted by Apis Partners and Accion Frontier Investments Group

A key aspect of investing for social impact is being able to effectively measure impact, which has always been challenging. Whilst there have been several well-informed attempts to create uniform standards to address this challenge (such as IRIS and GIIRS Ratings), these have largely been intended to compare impact investments across multiple industries. This can be a valuable exercise for multi-sector fund managers, but the approach invariably leads to a trade-off: using the same scale to measure impact across a number of diverse industries leads to a lowest common denominator analysis. These standards seek to measure impact across industry sectors, but they do not provide information about the nature of social change created within each industry. At the other end of the spectrum, several fund managers have developed bespoke systems to measure the impact of their own portfolios. These systems have been tailored for insurance at the base of the pyramid or poverty alleviation progress, and they do a good job of accomplishing those goals. Unfortunately though, they are often too specialized to allow for any comparison across impact managers.

Therefore, the most optimal approach to impact measurement is that which: (1) surfaces the specific nature of impact created in a sector, (2) remains broad enough to allow for some objective comparison across managers, (3) but does not seek to compare the incomparable. Such an approach only seems possible when impact measurement is focused on specific industries.

It is with this approach that Apis Partners and Accion Frontier Investments Group have chosen to operate. Apis and Accion are fund managers investing specifically in inclusive and innovative financial services for the un- and under-banked. Like other impact focused investors, we have a dedicated mission to provide social as well as financial return on investments, which requires the measurement of social impact in a real, quantifiable way.

Read the rest of this entry »