Microfinance Essay Examples

The concept of microfinance is not something new. In fact, the history of the microfinance goes back as early as the 15th century. It was in Europe where the concept of pawn shops – an institution by the Catholic Church against the people who were charging exorbitant

Micro credit is the process of helping the “poorest of the poor” obtain loans. Since big time banks rarely help people who need help acquiring loans, micro credit is another source that makes it possible for the lower class to achieve that. They focus on they call the “real economy,” where they are on personal relationships with their clients. They want them to succeed and help their clients change their own life. Compared to the big banks, they are not looking to make huge amount of interest back off their loan (paper chasers).

In this documentary, Tom Heinemann (the director) provides a sharp critique of microfinance in the world. The documentary pertains critically to the work of Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh. Tom Heinemann tells an unpopular and confronting story about how microfinance, although innovative, leaves few to prosper and the many poor being financially “strapped”. This documentary has caused a flood of criticism about microfinance, while diminishing the reputation of Grameen Bank’s founder, Muhammad Yunus. I feel that The Micro Debt does not shed the full light onto microfinance, yet it is becoming increasingly hard to ignore its effects.

Muhammad Yunus, Founder of the Grameen Bank is often hailed as the architect of microfinance lending and has been praised around the world for his work and even awarded the Nobel Peace prize in 2006. The concept of microfinance is to lend small portions of money to poor people who could not have otherwise acquired a loan from a regular bank. Microfinance banks give the poor a small loan with incredibly high interest rates in the hope that the borrower will create a business or some form of income creating venture to sustain themselves and pay back their loans. Not only is that person left with a way to support themselves, but it also creates jobs in the community. These banks have noticed that when the money was lent to a family through the woman of the household, it went a longer way than if the man of the household received the loan. Yunus has noticed even within the Grameen Bank that “Poor women [have] an amazing skill, the skill of managing a scarce resource.” (12) Studies have shown that if a mother is receiving income the first beneficiaries are her children. The effects of this are amazing, many communities have seen a rise in school enrollment and improved child survival rates because women are more likely to spend money on food for their children and health care than are fathers. There is a saying, “If you give a man a fish, he will eat

In recent months a new concept of micro financing has created intrigue. Micro financing has many definitions but the most popular reference these days is the practice of informal loans between individuals rather than institutions (peer to peer Micro loans). Micro financing first became popular in third world countries where entrepreneurs were able to start businesses for as little as twenty-five dollars. Many were able to quickly repay their loans and often times become grantors of other peoples loans. This created a formula for prosperity though admittedly on a small scale. As micro financing web sites began to pop up for use in more industrialized nations one question became obvious. The maximum request is capped at ten thousand dollars with most micro financing organizations. So what enterprises would actually benefit from the loan? There are not a large number of start up businesses that can be built in the modern world for a mere ten thousand dollars. Most franchise opportunities require well over a twenty-five thousand dollar initial investment. Even legitimate home based businesses are not cheap. Surprisingly entrepreneurs seem to be able to do a lot with limited funds. A little research on one of the more popular micro loan web sites www.kiva.org turned up a large number of people with success stories based on loan amounts far less than the maximum. No one had plans to start up a franchise but there were many people with clear and realistic goals. A large number of

While the spread of microcredit as a development practice has enabled borrowers in many developing countries to access credit, not all experiences with microcredit have been positive. The original model of microcredit lending was not effective in alleviating poverty. To remedy this, an “improved” lending model was introduced; however, this model, too, has failed the impoverished citizens of the developing world because of its exclusivity. Traditional microcredit loaning systems require some form of material collateral to ensure that a borrower will repay their loan. This excludes the ultra-poor due to their lack of possessions to use as collateral (Schurmann and Johnston 2009, 521). To solve this issue and provide the poorest citizens with

The MFI in India has been facing a lot of challenges in India recently. The challenges faced by MFI’s are listed below:

What is microlending? In simplest terms microlending is the lending of very small amounts of money at low interest, to low income people in urban and rural areas. It started forty years ago, when a person named Muhammad Yunus was visiting his family and his country Bangladesh which had recently become an independent country. Muhammad Yunus had left his home country then –East Bengal- when he was a child with his parents in search of a better future. He graduated from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, with a PhD in economics. Muhammad Yunus is the founder of Grameen Bank, the first non-profit organization to offer microfinance services in Bangladesh and in the world (New York Times). This bank showed the world on how little

The most debatable topic in microcredit has always been interest rates, especially that prices paid by low-income clients tend to be higher than conventional banks’ rates, and interest rates for some MFIs have exceeded annual rate of 100 percent on effective basis. In Egypt, microcredit rates are increasingly being criticized and viewed as unreasonably high, while it is immoral to set high prices on the poor. At least once a year, an article must be found in an Egyptian newspaper urging for the need to create “a bank for the poor”. Driven by religious perspective and long history of subsidized policies, the longing for a bank for the poor in Egypt have always been spinning around the idea of providing credit to low-income households

Paradoxes abound in the English language; from comical ones like “jumbo shrimp” to more profound ones like “deafening silence”. But paradoxes are more than literary terms, they also exist in real situations as well. For example, one method of reducing world poverty seems to be an inherent paradox. When a country is impoverished it seems counterintuitive that one of the most desirable ways to alleviate large-scale poverty is by loaning money to the people. Despite this, microloans have improved countless economies in impoverished areas; most notably, in Africa and Southeastern Asia. Certain countries have received more attention than others and their situations have been used as models for further expansion of the micro-financial

Granted microfinance has been projected as an initiative, which is targeted solely at women however the ‘types’ of women who participate in this financial venture, remain unclear both in the states which operate microfinance, and the literature which discuss the successes and failures of microfinance institutions. For example, ‘Young unmarried women face very different prospects and constraints compared with older women who may be widowed or divorced’ Johnson (2000:90). A woman who is unmarried may benefit more from microfinance, in comparison to a married women who has duties, obligations and responsibilities not only to her children, but also to her husband, and members of her extended family, and may feel more anxiety and pressure to fulfil these obligations compared to an unmarried women. The case of married women, remains an interesting case, as gender relations between men and their wives become difficult as the lines of financial responsibility become blurred due to men, depending on their wives to obtain these loans as a source of income. This has been problematic as it hinders gender equality as , women have and continue to obtain loans under false pretences, often on behalf of their husbands who continue to exploit them for financial purposes as, ‘A loan to a woman

Yes, I believe that for-profit microfinance institutions (MFIs) are good for the industry. Most notable, for-profit MFIs satisfy the going concern principle that is necessary in order to create a truly inclusive financial system for everyone on this planet. Additionally, for-profit MFIs have easier access to funding sources and have greater regulatory oversight over them, allowing for greater transparency. To help illustrate this point, we will also examine the for-profit MFI Kenya Women Microfinance Bank, which made the transition from a non-profit MFI to a for-profit MFI in 2010 to better meet the needs of its clients.

Microcredit is a financial innovation that is considered to have originated with the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, and Muhammad Yunus is its founder. This Bank offers collateral free loan to rural poor women. Women are afforded the opportunity of education and access to health care, reduced unemployment, so that their families and communities prosper. The future of the Microcredit is very bright now because it plays an important role for the development of poor families. This system is being introduced in both developing and developed countries of the world. The relationship between Muhammad Yunus’s Grameen bank and women’s lives is important because he helps poor women to be independent and economically support their family. Because of

Microfinance is widely talked about throughout the world. Through the remote part of Bangladesh it kicked off its journey and gradually flew through the kingdom of light hovering clouds to spread its message. And the target group easily understood and promptly absorbed its mesmerising effect. This way credibility of the system was established within comparatively short span of time. In a World Bank estimate about 160 million from the developing countries at present take assistance through microfinance. However, credit goes to the Bengali economist Dr. Mohammed Yunus who invented in his factory the idea and threw it with a note that it would effectively absorb the shock of poverty and empower the

Specifically, Grameen focused on the number and amount of loans and savings, self-sufficiency ratio and repayment rate as its primary measurements for organizational success. Negative consequences included the threatening of clients by loan officers, the public ostracizing of default clients by their community, over-indebting clients, limiting the access to savings, and hand-cuffing clients through mandatory savings products. As a result, through the international press and protests, opponents began to question whether or not microfinance was financially sustainable, exploited or assisted the poor, and was an appropriate method for poverty alleviation. Furthermore, Grameen’s focus on proving its financial sustainability lead to non-transparent and irrelevant financial reporting. Potential funders and investors began to question the validity of microfinance’s ability to alleviate poverty and to repay investments. Instead of abandoning microfinance, due to these protestations, Grameen restructured its business strategy and the industry designed a more reliable and relevant reporting methodology through the development of MIX.