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> Posted by Hema Bansal and Pallavi Sen, the Smart Campaign and MFIN

On June 16th the Microfinance Institutions Network (MFIN) was officially recognized as the Self Regulatory Organization (SRO) for non-bank financial company (NBFC) microfinance institutions in India. With this, MFIN not only became the first network to attain such recognition in India, but also in Asia and perhaps in the world.

An SRO is an organization that has been authorized by a statutory regulator or a government agency to exercise control and regulation on its behalf over certain aspects of an industry. Established in 2009, MFIN is an association of NBFC-MFIs acting as their primary representative body. As an SRO, MFIN will essentially support the RBI in ensuring compliance to regulatory prescriptions and the Industry Code of Conduct.

Subsequent to the Andhra Pradesh crisis, the RBI had instituted a subcommittee of the Central Board of the Reserve Bank under the chairmanship of Shri Y. H. Malegam to study issues and concerns in the microfinance sector in India. The committee submitted its report in January 2011, thereby providing concrete recommendations and guidelines for the creation and recognition of microfinance NBFCs in India. Except for setting in place an SRO, all the other recommendations of the committee were implemented by the RBI in 2012. These other guidelines included establishing a credit bureau, the Guidelines on Fair Practices Code for NBFCs, and additional guidelines on loan size, target clientele, interest rates, transparency, collection practices, and multiple lending. With MFIN recognized as an SRO, the RBI is now implementing the last remaining Malegam Committee recommendation.

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