The Role and Impact of Microfinance Institutions on Ghana’s Economy.

In both developing and emerging economies, microfinance has vastly and increasingly been seen as one of the most important means for enhancing the lives of the poor and therefore a major tool for economic and social development mostly in rural areas. Lately, contrary to this widespread belief, critics have raised eyebrows against this growing popularity of microfinance as a major tool for enhancing economic development. Contrary to belief, they are of the opinion that microfinance is a ‘make-belief’ that is hindering economic and social development rather than enhancing it.

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 the same way Khandker state that, microfinance reduces poverty by increasing consumption among participants and their families. Degree of poverty reduction evaluate on the based on consumption impacts of credit show that about 5% of program participants can improved their families out of poverty each year by participating and borrowing from microfinance programs. (Khandker S. R., 1998, p.

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.

“Microcredit is about giving hope” Natalie Portman, (Natalie Portman Quote). Microcredit or microfinance, is the lending of small amounts of money at low interest to new businesses in the developing world, (David Siegel). People argue that microcredit I ineffective. But others disagree and say it’s the best way to win the fight against global poverty. Microcredit is an effective way to fight poverty because it’s easy to obtain, provides stability, and helps people build a new path for themselves.

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 problem with the current state of micro-banks and credit card companies is the amount of the fees and interest charges they are charging, usually to consumers who are poor and low wage earners, who desperately seek out these alternatives to take care of their financial needs. These practices leave them in a more desperate state because the extortionate fees, making it impossible to stay current on their payments, by driving disadvantage consumers in deeper debt. Some of these companies charge high percentage rates, and being late on

Microfinance institutions (MFI) have created intense debates in an industry of traditional banking. Being primarily focused on mission of poverty reduction through economic stimulation of low income areas, MFI have sharpened the credit policy to specification of area of interests. The major distinction is loan interest rate being notably higher in comparison to profit orientated financial institutions (Rosenberg et al. 2009). The reason roots in excessive cost of funds and administrative loses faced by growing industry. As noted in Cull et.al (2009), interest paid by borrowers represents the struggle of MFI to overcome the burden of expenses and achieve financial sustainability. The latter however, can be reached by altering the capital structure of MFI through diversification of source of funding or rejection of capital which can lead to malfunction. As soon as the changes are implemented, institutions can proceed to expansion reaching increasing return to scale and beneficially affecting sustainability. This essay would focus on the role on subsidies in performance of MFI. The rationale behind exploring this form of noncommercial capital is that total amount of subsidized capital in MFI reached almost 16 billion in 2009 (Bloomberg, 2012) posing a question regarding the alternative and probably more efficient use of respective funds to support poor. The second reason derives from the number of researches discussed later,

In reality, it is generally perceived that small scale fund plans have met constrained triumphs. The capacity of a lady to change her life through access to money related administrations relies on upon her individual circumstance, capacities, environment and the status of ladies as a gathering. Control of capital is one and only measurement of an intricate procedure of strengthening. Tragically, advantages of smaller scale credit are undermined by inconveniences confronted by ladies in getting to data, informal communities, and different assets they have to prevail in business. An investigation of the effect of miniaturized scale credit plots in Bangledesh uncovered consequences of just 21% of respondents getting to be enabled. Out of financial variables investigated, they inferred that ladies institutional cooperation, media presentation and family arrive property were the more critical necessities for ladies strengthening than accessibility of credit. A few faultfinders have contended that the greater part of microfinance projects are organized so as to have their most noteworthy effect in helping ladies perform conventional parts better. They contend that by accentuating the advantages that ladies' families get from their entrance to credit and ensuring this does not meddle altogether with their customary obligations, microfinance foundations may strengthen conventional sex parts as opposed to change

Micro economics is concerned with decision making on a small scale such as consumers, workers, businesses or firms and how they communicate with each and other and look at different markets at the same time.

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

Once the Era of apartheid had come to an end in 1994 the internationally development community entered South Africa promoting the microcredit model with high hopes to empower the poorest black communities to break loose from the poverty spiral, however the Microcredit model was seen to be having the complete opposite effect, ultimately causing incredible damage to the area. The microcredit model was supposed to be the means of bringing sustainable development to the extreme poor areas. The model has been named the “anti-development” intervention (1), because in practice it has only shown that it supports consumption spending. The poor are worse off than ever before; to keep up with the obligations of repaying their microloans, they are forced to sell the few assets they own or borrow money from friends or relatives or even worse take up new microloans in order to pay for the old ones. This is not the only downfall of this type of so called sustainable development; another problem that emerges from this is that the actual businesses emerging form microloans are anything but businesses elevating poverty. The type of business that has been arising from the microloans have only created hyper-competition amongst all the new businesses as well as the old ones, leaving about 40% of the South African population repaying debt. The poorest and most vulnerable are left behind to take care of themselves drowning in debt, while the private banks

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.

Microfinance also known as microcredit is the provision of financial services to small businesses or groups of entrepreneurs in an effort to eradicate poverty. This is most common to developing or third world countries and is provided to people who don’t qualify for the formal banking system, in other words people without

Microfinance has achieved growing significance as a tool for poverty alleviation with the year 2005 marked as the United Nations International Year of Microcredit. Over the years, the world has witnessed a remarkable growth in the number of institutions offering microfinance and the number of clients reached. Figures reported to the Microcredit Summit Campaign show that as at 2007, 3,352 institutions offered microfinance to about 155 million clients, 68 percent of which were defined as poor clients.