Title: The%20Centre%20for%20Micro%20Finance%20A%20comprehensive%20approach%20of%20Microfinance
1The Centre for Micro FinanceA comprehensive
approach of Microfinance
- Karachi
- November 1st, 2006
2Agenda
- Microfinance in India an overview
- The Centre for Micro Finance
- Research Unit
- MFI Strategy Unit
3Microfinance who are the targeted clients?
Poor and vulnerable households economically at
the Bottom of the Pyramid
How can microfinance improve their lives?
4Microfinance what is it?
whereas objectives are
Often perceived as
- Suite of financial services
- Thrift / savings
- Credit
- Insurance and Investments
- Transfer Payments and Remittances
- Group and individual lending
- Sustainable activity
- Micro-credit
- Group lending
- Social/charitable activity
5The challenge ahead demand vs. supply gap to
bridge
Supply
Demand
Improve access
- 60 of MF services in South
- Range of risks to be covered
- Limited non-credit services
Increase impact
- Fast growing population and overall economy
- Missing market linkages / employment opportunities
Including loans against gold
6Constraints overcome those challenges?
- Information Asymmetry
- No collateral
- No credit history
- Difficult to evaluate enterprises potential
success
- High Costs of Intermediation
- Low value transactions
- Geographical isolation
- High supervision costs (no financial literacy)
- Informal activities need flexible access
- Illiteracy traditional services inappropriate
- High cash handling costs
Difficult risk assessment High transaction costs
How to release these constraints?
7Thus the need for institutions building
Finance
- Venture capital for start ups
- Cheaper cost of funds for on lending
Systems
- Product development
- Technology platform
- Clients authentication by unique ID
- Staff Skills strengthening / Training
- Recruiting of professionals
- MFI Entrepreneurs development
Capacities
Research
- Assess and Increase impact on poverty alleviation
- Experiment and improve products
8Agenda
- Microfinance in India an overview
- The Centre for Micro Finance
- Research Unit
- MFI Strategy Unit
9CMFs objectives and mission
- Established in 2005
- CMFs objectives
- To address knowledge gaps in micro finance sector
- Experiment on ground solutions
- CMFs mission
- Systematically research links between access to
financial services and participation of poor in
larger economy - Participate in maximizing access to financial
services -
Research on micro finance and livelihood
financing (RU)
Strategy building for MFIs (MSU)
10CMFs Objectives
Training
Research
Influence practice
Advocacy
Strategy building
11MSU and RU re-enforcement loop
- MFIs Strategy for growth
- Definition and implementation of innovative
business models - Market research, creation of linkages
- MFIS best practices sharing
- Design/test of new financial products
- Capacity building
- capital structure, HR, MIS, processes, customer
segmentation, governance
Strategy (MSU)
- Impact of microfinance
- Impact Evaluation Studies
- Economics of micro enterprise
- Insights on HH "financial behavior"
- Constraints on HHÂ productivity
- Experimentation on product design
- Micro finance transaction costs
Research (RU)
12CMF collaborates with existing active players in
the microfinance sector
MFIs/NGOs/Trust
Banks/Financial Institutions
Universities/ Research Institutions
SMEs
CDF
CMF
Insurance Companies
Manufacturing Companies
CIRM
CAFS
Funding Organizations
Regulators/ Policy Makers
Government (Central and State)
13Agenda
- Microfinance in India an overview
- The Centre for Micro Finance
- Research Unit
- MFI Strategy Unit
14Goals of Research is to maximize microfinance
impact through 3 axes
- Why are recovery rates so high?
- What is the financial behavior of clients?
- What is the impact of microfinance?
Understand better
- Improve organizations
- Information management
- Role of HR policy and staff incentives
- More cost-effective processes
Expand access
- Alternative channels
- SHGs
- Revive RRBs
- New channels (Kiosks, ATM, CF)
- Policy
- Regulation
- Competition and information sharing
- New and innovative products
- Maximize the impact of credit through other
services
Improve quality of services
15These objectives translate into 4 Research areas
to maximize microfinance impact
1
2
Impact and product design
Microfinance plus
Maximize impact On client
4
3
Finance and Organizational issues
Policy
16Impact and experimentation
1
Impact
Experimentation
- Micro-credit has been changing people's lives
and revitalizing communities -
- UN, 2005, Year of micro-credit
The full promise of microfinance can only be
realised by returning to the early commitments to
experimentation, innovation and evaluation
Morduch
1999
Can we put numbers on this claim? Are there more
cost-effective ways to achieve this goal?
17Product design credit
1
Selection
Monitoring
Enforcement
- Individual/group liability
- Self/MFI selection
- Guarantors
- Collaterals
- Interest rate
- Repayment schedule
- Communication strategies
- Loan size
- Interest rate
- Within group monitoring
- Staff supervision
Design the most cost-effective products by
varying credit product components
181
Product diversification and communication
strategies
- Insurance
- Weather
- Life and Health
- Livestock
- Flexible loans
- Small initial sizes
- Larger subsequent loans
- Longer terms
Savings
What do low income clients want?
- Housing loans
- Build new homes
- Improve existing homes
- Group based
- Individual loans
Remittances products
Which delivery channels/communication strategies
are effective?
19Improve communication strategies
1
- How do households face shocks and risk?
- What drives savings and credit behavior?
- Why do people default (and why dont they)?
- Why dont households adopt the most profitable
activities? - Why dont people adopt useful financial services?
Design the most effective communication strategies
20Microfinance Plus address contextual constraints
2
inputs
infrastructure
Impact
Access to Financial services
?
Health
entrepreneurship
- Reduce risks of MFIs by combining microfinance
with other - development interventions (health, financial
training) - Provide products / services through credit
21Organizational issues cost and profitability
3
Transaction?
Bank
Micro-loan
9
25
Return?
- How to reduce transaction costs?
- Show investors risk return performance of
micro-loans
22Organizational and financial issues
3
Information management
Organizational structure
- What is the debt capacity of clients? Can they
absorb higher loan sizes? - How can MFIs analyze better their clients debt
capacity and capacity to repay? - Role of MIS in info management
- What organizational improvements will help MFIs
to sustain themselves and to grow faster? - What is effect of HR policies (ex, staff
incentives)
Processes
Financing
- How can MFIs make their business processes more
efficient activity-based costing - What are the flows and successes during the
implementation of the intervention? - How to improve project implementation?
- How to secure financing for MFIs?
- Start up capital
- Long-term loans
- Can securitization help access cheaper financing
for MFIs and how can it be done?
23Policy issues
4
- What are regulatory obstacles to MFIs?
- What are the consequences of competition and how
to manage it? - Why is there no information sharing? How can a
credit bureau be set up? - How to make MFIs more transparent?
- How to improve microfinance reputation?
24Research projects examples
- Effect of smokeless
- Chulhas in Gram Vikas,
- Orissa
- Impact of treated
- bed-nets provided through
- Credit in Orissa
- Delivering Nutrition
- supplements through
- Microfinance groups
- Impact of micro-credit
- In Spandana, Hyderabad
- Experiment on repayment
- schedules in VWS, Kolkota
- and KAS, Orissa
- Impact of weather
- Insurance and willingness
- to pay
Impact and product design
Microfinance plus
Maximize impact On client
Finance and Organizational issues
Policy
- Effect of staff incentives
- Transaction costs break-up in MFIs
- Activity based costing
- For MFIs
- Credit information
- Sharing in India
- Regulatory impediments
- For micro finance
25Research other initiatives
Panel database
- Construction of a panel database in Tamil Nadu
for on-going research - With Yale Center for Economic growth (Mark
Rosenzweig, Dean Karlan, Chris Udry, Paul
Schultz, Rohini Pande) - 10,000 households in Tamil Nadu, rural and urban,
every 4 years - Study vulnerability, consumption patterns over
time - Document migration patterns, access to financial
services over time
Seminar series
- Academics and practitioners
- Foregone seminars
- Prof Ashok Jhunjhunwala, IIT Chennai
- Prof Vaidyanathan, Madras Institute of
Development studies - Prof Sendhil Mullainathan, Harvard
- GN Bajpai, ex chairman of SEBI
- Shekhar Shah, World Bank
Courses
- Economics of micro finance, by Adel Varghese,
Texas University - Evaluating social programs, by Poverty Action Lab
- MBA course elective on microfinance, by Rock Rock
Magleby-Lambert, Boston University - Total immersion program in Finance and development
26Agenda
- Microfinance in India an overview
- The Centre for Micro Finance
- Research Unit
- MFI Strategy Unit
27MSU Objectives and areas of work
- Advice MFIs to define and execute a growth
strategy by addressing their main challenges - Horizontal growth (Same Products Same Customers
Profile) - Vertical growth (New Products /or New Customers
Profile)
Support MFIs growth (vertical horizontal)
Refine Business strategy and model
Improve internal Organizational structure
28MSU Areas of work with MFIs
Business strategy
Organizational structure
1
- 3y strategic plan definition
- Competitive position assessment (SWOT analysis)
- Marketing strategy
- Customer segments to target
- Products to develop to serve these segments (IL,
insurance) - Portfolio management
- Market linkages creation
- Leverage of ICICI MFIs and corporations clients
- Thematic consultations
- Capital structure (equity/debt) and access to
financial markets (VC, securitization) - HR recruiting, training, incentives
- Organizational design
- MIS
- Processes of operations
- Governance
2
3
4
29Reduction of MFIs cost of funds Supply-demand
match assessment
1
Supply
Demand
Identify potential assets to securitize/buy out
Evaluate investors risk/return appetite for
MFIs paper
Check demand / supply requirements match
Facilitate / structure the deal
304 options to explore and 4 types of players to
interview to reduce MFIs costs of funds
1
Portfolio Securitization
Bond issue
Portfolio Buyout
Direct medium/long term loan
Foreign banks
- Minimum volume of investment?
- Investment currency and hedging mechanism?
- Tenure / maturity of investment?
- Pooled vs single MFI portfolio investment?
- Investor risk/return profile?
- Portfolio / MFI rating requirement?
- Guaranty requirement (FLDG/SLDG)?
- Investment seasonality (PSL requirement)?
- Investor reporting / monitoring requirements?
- Willingness / capacity of the MFIs to receive
funds and comply with investors requirements?
Domestic banks
Funds
Facilitator
Impact on MFIs CoF?
31HR training, recruiting, incentives
2
Potential partners
Organizational structure
- MFIs careers, Hunt Third sector
- Awareness program
- Recruitment facilitate recruitment for the
entire sector in the next 3-5 y gt 20K FTEs to
hire (TBD) - Financial training for top mngt
- Training for middle mngt field staff
- Incentive schemes
- IFMR centers (CAFS, insurance)
- ICICI trainings
- HBS, Duke, IIM
- Coordinate existing providers
- MicroSave, Care India, Basix school of
livelihood, EDA - Set up new facilities (if required)
32Training / capacity building for MFIs questions
to be answered
2
- Identify prioritize immediate and recurring
training needs at top/middle management levels
and field staff for top 10 MFIs - Market review (cost, location, duration) of the
existing facilities in India (Priority1) and
internationally (Priority2) - Identify gaps for supply to match demand gt use
MicroSave (CMF partner) study as a starting point - Set up new entities to fill these gaps (if
necessary) - Explore funding solutions for MFIs to be trained
- gt Interactions with top 10 MFIs , mainly CEO
and HR director - gt Interviews of main training institutions and
financial universities in India and abroad (HBS)
33MIS partnership with FINO
3
- To develop a common end to end delivery platform
shared across Indian MFIs - Created as sectoral resource to serve 700M
customers
Objective
Benefits for MFIs
- To reduce initial CAPEX required per MFI
- To improve product depth and capability
- To improve business management and reduce
transaction costs - data reliability and timeliness (product,
clients) - To better service liabilities and investments
- To allow single-window monitoring of customer
relationships
- To access reliable data on MFIs operations
performance - Easier portfolio rating through creation of
historical data
Benefits for investors
Current status
- Currently sized for 12-50M customers
- Proof of concepts completed, final contract
negotiations (IBM/iflex) - Entire infrastructure, hosting, operations
outsourced - First phase launch with 5 partners by May 2006
34Market linkage creation approach
4
Corporates
ICICI Commercial teams
- Product to be sourced (retailed)?
- Region? Volume? Price? Quality?
- Required investments (capital or capabilities)
for tie up? - Expected return (in value)?
- Timeframe of return?
- Risk undertaken by company (quality)?
- Previous pilot already undertaken?
Demand
Market dynamics
ICICI Sectoral team
Sectoral experts / NGOs
MFI
Customers
Supply
- Local presence in identified region?
- Willingness/Capacity of MFI to
- Provide customized financial products?
- Identify entrepreneurs (if necessary)?
- Provide/coordinate technical training at the
field level?
- Volume generated (absorbed)?
- Quality?
- Cost of production?
- Capacity to contract payback loan?
- Existing capabilities/training need?
354
Market linkage example cattle feed distribution
through Godrej Agrovet-Spandana (1/2)
- Dairy activity is a low revenue activity for
farmers in spite of a growing milk demand and
therefore remains a marginal source income - Milk yields from buffaloes is low because these
are not fed good quality feed - Farmers perceive dairying as a subsidiary
activity because it only offers marginal income
they have no incentive to own more that 1 or 2
buffaloes - Farmers however willing to invest in dairy
(cattle feed, high quality breeds, artificial
insemination) often lack the funds to do so - Godrej Agrovet, a concentrate cattle feed
producer, is not presence in the areas where
Spandana (MFI with 700,000 clients) operates.
Initial Situation
Objective
- To increase farmers revenues from milk production
through improved yield and quality of milk
produced by cattle feed utilization - To reduce the risk on Spandanas loans that go
toward buffalo purchase
Challenges
- Marketing the feed product to traditional / low
income farmers and educating them to utilization
of such product - Designing a credit product that caters to the
clients needs
Expected Impact
- Expected net revenue increase in Guntur
- 300-600Rs/month/household with a single buffalo
fed with cattle feed - up to 2400Rs/month, ie. by 34, once households
scale up to 4 buffalo after demonstration effect
on one buffalo
average monthly household income of 60
families surveyed was 7000Rs
36Market linkage example cattle feed distribution
through Godrej Agrovet-Spandana (2/2)
4
Godrej Agrovet
- Delivers concentrate feed in 50 kg bags to
central locations from where Spandana receives
the product - Region Guntur
- Price 325Rs/50 Kg
- Has assigned 2 officers to coordinate project
Demand
Spandana
Customers
- Provide credit at 0 int. rate for the purchase
of feed - Delivers the product to weekly center meeting
- Has assigned 1 project leader
- Does not make any profit out of this initiative
- Increase yields and fat
- Increase income by 10-20 Rs/day
- Are offered doorstep delivery
- Are able to purchase the feed on credit at 0
Supply
37Godrej Agrovet-Spandana productivity improvement
4
38Godrej Agrovet-Spandana productivity improvement
4
After Spandana-Godrej partnerships
Details
Godrej
1
1
Spandana buys cattle feed in bulk at distributors
price (premium for delivery costs)
Cattle feed
Piloted
Spandana
2
Spandana provides a 0 loan for farmers to buy
cattle feed delivered at village level and farmer
pays back according to seasonality
Loan
2
Cattle feed
Farmer
Sales
3
3
Milk
Spandana supports a chiller set up by providing a
loan to a local entrepreneur
Loan
Chiller Entrp.
Spandana
To be piloted
Sales
4
4
The entrepreneur pays back his loan through
direct sales to the dairy
Dairy
Results
- Pilot on 300 women for 5 months
- Milk production increases by 50 (from 2L to 3L)
- Increased net revenue for the farmer2200 INR
per month(4 buffaloes) - Spandana provides buffalo loan for farmer to take
up milk production
39Market linkage example Mint cropping (1/2)
4
- Traditional crops are being produced in the
Eastern Uttar Pradesh by low-income clients of
one of the top 10 MFIs. - Mentha cultivation is not done at the commercial
level although it is feasible. - Mint production company is trying to secure it
raw material sourcing to serve a growing demand
Current Situation
Objective
- Encourage and provide opportunity to the low
income clients (having cultivable land) to grow
mentha (Commercial) - Link procuring company to the low income clients
directly - Organize producers in a commercial venture
- Business model needs to be downscaled initially
(low profit for the Company) - Financing the Distillation Unit (Rs 22-25 K)
- Solving logistics (extension support) and pilot
project funding issues
Challenges
Expected Impact
- Enhanced returns through the mint cropping (Rs
21K /Acre) as compared to Rice (Rs 10K/Acre) and
Wheat (Rs 8.4 K/Acre).
40Market linkage example Mint cropping (2/2)
4
Mint Procurement Companies Requirement
- Product Good quality Mentha arvensis.
- Region Eastern Uttar Pradesh
- Price At Prevailing market rates (Rs 450- Rs
750/ Litre Mentha oil). - Scale of Operation Aggregated produce from 15
Acres Bigha land. - Tie-up with mint firms for procurement through
their local offices. - Risk Crop failure due to water logging
(Weather/Crop Insurance) and the demand
fluctuations.
Demand
MFIs Role
Customers Role
- Plant Mint yielding 55-60 Kg/Acre and can be
harvested twice in 7-8 months. - Proper irrigation and timely crop management.
- Shift from Wheat (Traditional) ? Mint
(Commercial). - Invest (financed from MFI) Rs 22K- 25K for the
Distillation Unit (Collectively owned) and raw
materials.
- Identify client on the basis of land availability
in the selected districts. - Finance Distillation Unit (Cost Rs. 20K-22K) and
raw materials. - Design package loan covering the credit and
insurance needs.
Supply
414
Market linkage creation other projects
- Handicraft
- Fisheries / Seaweed
- Trees plantation
- Food processing
- Vegetables / Mint cropping
42Thank you
- For any question
- annie_at_ifmr.ac.in or sdjari_at_ifmr.ac.in
43Constraints to scaling access for the poor
- Information Asymmetry
- No collateral
- No credit history
- Difficult to evaluate enterprises potential
success
- High Costs of Intermediation
- Low value transactions
- Geographical isolation
- High supervision costs (no financial literacy)
- Informal activities need flexible access
- Illiteracy traditional services inappropriate
- High cash handling costs
High transaction costs
Provision of microfinance is constrained by
Poor Technology
Regulatory Issues
Staff Incentives not aligned to maximise access
to financial services for poor
44How to release these constraints?
- To improve impact of microfinance on the poor
- To increase access to the relevant suite of
financial services
45CMF Who are we?
- Permanent staff 23 Research associates and 8 MSU
Associates from Kennedy School, Yale, IFMR, XIMB,
IRMA - Short-term Interns Masters and Phd students from
Kennedy School, Harvard, Yale, MIT, DSE etc. - Research Committee to give advice on submitted
proposals - Jonathan Morduch (NYU), Abhijit Banerjee (MIT),
Byomkesh (SKS), Mr. Thiagarajan (MCFI),
Chandrasekar (IFMR), Bindu Ananth (CMFR founder)
46CMFs Objectives
Training
Research
Influence practice
Advocacy
Strategy building