Here is the presentation on the US Subprime Crisis & Implications for Microfinance by Katherine McKee, CGAP from the SVMN May 18th meeting:...
Here are slides from the November 5th SVMN meeting, featuring Shari Berenbach from the Calvert Foundation, and Karl Willey from eBay’s MicroPlace....
It was Standing Room Only at our most recent Sept 10th SVMN meeting, with over 120 microfinance groupies attending (in a room designed for 100!).
Pictures & presentations by Kiva.org & Prosper.com are included below:
Kiva presentation by Premal Shah:
Prosper presentation by Chris Larsen:
(fyi: the quality on the podcast recording was a little rough… if anyone can help do some soundfile editing, please let me know......
This podcast is from the June 11, 2007 SVMN meeting with Chris Crane, President and CEO of Opportunity International.
Abstract:
Chris Crane speaks on the importance of faith in Opportunity’s mission, their commitment to serving the poorest of the working poor, and their track record of innovation with financial products and technology.
Opportunity International is the world’s largest faith-based microfinance institution, serving over one million poor entrepreneurs of any faith or no faith in 28 developing countries. Opportunity provides savings accounts and insurance to an additional three million poor people. Founded in 1971, Opportunity has more commercial banks serving the working poor than any other institution....
Here is a recap of the April 11th SVMN meeting, featuring Damian von Stauffenberg of MicroRate:
A is for Alpha
Performance ratings implemented by MicroRate focus on how good of a job an MFI is doing at lending to the poor. Credit ratings by traditional rating agencies focus on the likelihood of default. A MicroRate rating include 5 subratings: operations, portfolio quality, management and organization, governance and strategic position and financial position. Of these, financial performance subratings receiving the strongest weighting.
MFIs are shaped by growth. In Latin America growth rates of 40% are typical and rates of 130% are not unheard of. Such fast growth requires capital. The need for capital among the 40 top Latin American MFIs alone is $5.3 billion, 80% of...
ok folks, here it is… our very first SVMN podcast!
below is a rough cut recording of our April 11, 2007 SVMN mtg with Damian von Stauffenberg, MicroRate.
you can also download his presentation and read the meeting recap......
Bob Pattillo, founding director of the Gray Ghost Microfinance Fund (check out their new website launched this month!) was the guest speaker at the May 1st Silicon Valley Microfinance Network event.
The Gray Ghost Fund is a $75 million, for-profit fund of funds focused exclusively on investments in microfinance funds that supply capital - debt and equity - to microfinance institutions (MFIs) around the world. One of the purposes of the fund is to demonstrate the viability of microfinance as an alternative investment option.
Bob shared with the audience some of his insights as an investor in microfinance. In addition, he described some of his observations on trends in the industry.
1) Microfinance institutions are profitable
Across the world there are an increasing number of MFIs that are...
thanks to Scott Mattoon for the following SVMN meeting recap:
The Silicon Valley Microfinance Network (SVMN) hosted an event Monday, January 9th featuring Janine Firpo, a technologist with direct experience in implementing a technological approach to microfinancing. Her talk focused on a series of market trials in Uganda for a system called Remote Transaction System, orignally developed at HP, which enabled an agent and borrower to administer a small loan remote from the bank. The market being explored by HP, and a central interest of SVMN, is the 80% of working people in the world who do not put their money in banks. One of Janine’s goals is to reach these workers - 1.7 billion of them - with technology, and enable them to participate directly in the world of commerce, extending...