Microfinance in India a State of Sector Report

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Microfinance in India a State of Sector Report 2007 By Prabhu Ghate Lead Author Access Development Services has been established as a national technical services company to support the growing microfinance sector in India. In addition, Access also focuses on developing sustainable solutions for upscaling livelihoods of the poor. As a part of its mandate, currently Access houses the microfinance India platform and also supports the largest microfinance network viz “Access Microfinance Alliance” for streamlined and structured services to emerging MFI's in the country. Access's vision is to be global partner of choice providing inclusive and innovative livelihoods solution enabling the poor to overcome poverty and live with dignity. www.accessdev.org LEAD AUTHOR Prabhu Ghate ([email protected]) is an independent researcher, journalist and consultant. He was in the IAS in UP, and a senior Economist at the ADB where he authored "Informal Finance: Some Findings from Asia" (OUP, Hong Kong, 1992). He has a Ph D in public policy from Princeton University. [email protected] Microfinance in India A State of the Sector Report, 2007 By Prabhu Ghate Sai Gunaranjan Vijay Mahajan Prasanth Regy Frances Sinha Sanjay Sinha Microfinance India 28 Hauz Khas Village, New Delhi 110 016 This report represents the personal views of the chapter authors. It does not represent the views of Microfinance India, or of its sponsors, or of the Microfinance India Advisory Group. 1 2 Contents Chapter Page No Foreword 5 Preface and Acknowledgments 6 Abbreviations 8 1 Overview 11 Prabhu Ghate 2 Progress Under the SHG Bank Linkage Programme 35 Prabhu Ghate 3 SHG Federations: Financiers or Nurturers? 49 Prabhu Ghate 4 MFI Performance: Efficiency with Growth 73 Sanjay Sinha 5 Urban Microfinance 83 Prabhu Ghate 6 Social Performance in Indian Microfinance 105 Frances Sinha 7 Micro Insurance 119 Sai Gunaranjan 8 Microfinance and Technology 131 Prasanth V Regy and Vijay Mahajan 9 Regulation: The Microfinance Bill: An Opportunity Being Lost? 149 Prabhu Ghate List of Tables Page No Table 2.1 Growth trends in the SBLP 36 Table 2.2 Growth of linked SHGs in 13 Priority States 37 Table 2.3 Growth trends in the SBLP for 2006-07, by state 43 Table 2.4 Growth of linked SHGs in the regions 38 Table 2.5 Agency- wise number of SHGs financed 38 Table 4.1 Regional distribution of Indian MFIs rated by M-CRIL 74 Table 4.2 Distribution of sample Indian MFIs by microfinance model 75 Table 4.3 Distribution of sample MFIs by legal form 75 Table 4.4 Operating expense ratios of Indian MFIs 78 Table 4.5 Capital adequacy ratios of Indian MFIs 80 Table 4.6 Portfolio yield relative to APR 81 Table 4.7 Outreach of efficient microfinance institutions 82 Table 9.1 Successive versions of the microfinance bill 163 Table 9.2 MFOs and MFIs 164 3 Appendix Tables Page No Table A.1 Fact Sheet on coverage and growth of India microfinance, 2006-07 179 Table A.2 Information on 129 MFIs covered in Sa-Dhan's Quick Report 2007 180 Table A.3 Lending by selected apex financing institutions and banks to MFIs 188 Table A.4 Salient features of India-oriented equity investors 189 Table A.5 Insurance coverage by selected MFIs 191 Table A.6 List of selected transformations 192 List of Boxes Page No Box 1.1 Cashpor: Stoppage of Partnership Funding 14 Box 1.2 The challenges of raising capital: Inside the entrepreneur’s mind 26 Box 3.1 “The SHG Revolution: What Next?” 50 Box 3.2 MYRADA’s Community Managed Resource Centres (CMRCs) 53 Box 3.3 DHAN Foundation federations: changing with the times 55 Box 3.4 Making non-financial federations viable: PRADAN’s experience 57 Box 3.5 Roshan Vikas: An urban SHG federation 62 Box 3.6 Swayanshree at the crossroads: To borrow or to facilitate direct linkages? 63 Box 5.1 The uses and abuses of moneylenders 86 Box 5.2 The ubiquity of moneylenders in Bangalore 87 Box 5.3 Mobility in a Delhi slum 89 Box 5.4 Segmentation by loan purpose 90 Box 5.5 Ujjivan’s approach to urban housing microfinance: helping customers climb the housing ladder 92 Box 5.6 Individual loans and product diversification at SEWA Bank 94 Box 6.1 Dimensions of social performance 106 Box 7.1 Providing sustainable and competitive insurance products to rural customers 121 Box 7.2 SEWA and rainfall insurance 127 Box 8.1 The evolution of MIS in Basix 135 Box 8.2 A hosted solution: FINO 137 Box 8.3 TAFI: Putting mobile phone technology to work as a BC for remittances 145 Box 9.1: The microfinance bill: a case study in dilution 162 Box 9.2 Misunderstandings about savings 165 Box 9.3 Grameen II and flexible, voluntary savings 166 Box 9.4 Sa-Dhan’s Voluntary Mutual Code of Conduct 167 Box 9.5 A bit of history: Self-regulation backed by legal sanctions 168 List of Figures Page No Figure 4.1 Membership of sample MFIs 76 Figure 4.2 Average savings per member by model 77 Figure 4.3 OER by loan size 78 Figure 4.4 Relationship of portfolio size with efficiency 79 Figure 4.5 Sources of funds for microfinance operations 79 Figure 6.1 Assessing social performance 108 4 Foreword This is the second of a series of Annual Reports on the microfinance sector in India, prepared for presentation to the annual Microfinance India conference organized by ACCESS Development Services. The Microfinance India Conference, over the last four years, has become established as perhaps the most recognized sector event, and attracts large-scale interest from diverse stakeholders from the sector, and interested observers from within and outside the country, and has become known for insightful discussions and debates of key issues challenging the sector. This year's conference, the fourth in the series, is being held on October 9- 10. Among others, a specific significant contribution of Microfinance India, in addition to the conference, has been the publication of the State of the Sector Report annually released at the time of the Conference. Like last year, the State of the Sector Report contains two chapters on progress under each of the two main models of microfinance in India viz. linkage banking and MFIs. These two chapters are proposed to be carried every year and carry the most updated review of how the two models have progressed during the year. In addition, the Report includes five chapters on "new" topics and themes that could not be covered in the last State of the Sector Report, but continue to be of current and future significance to the Sector. These topics relate to SHG federations, evaluation of social performance, urban microfinance, developments in technology, and perspectives on regulatory issues, including the pending microfinance bill. A few topics such as developments in commercial bank lending to MFIs, equity investments, and issues relating to the mounting challenge of the growing need for quality human resource for the sector could not be covered again in this year's report for reasons of space, but are proposed to be taken up in subsequent years. In future years, we also hope to include themes, which have yet to be covered, such as livelihoods finance, financial inclusion, financial literacy, et al. The abundance of additional information collated by the author may necessitate a second edition of the report. In order to broad-base participation in preparation of the report and take fullest advantage of the rich expertise available in the sector, four of the chapters contained in this year's report have been contributed by well known sector experts. I am personally grateful to them for taking valuable time off from their other responsibilities. I acknowledge support extended for one of these chapters, that on the MFI model, by the MIX. All of them have been equally ambitious to continue to support this ACCESS - Microfinance initiative to make the State of the Sector Report as valuable to the sector as possible. To ensure widespread distribution of last year's State of the Sector Report, it has been brought out as book under the title of Microfinance in India: The Challenges of Rapid Growth. The book has been published by Sage Publications as a paperback so as to enhance affordability. I am also grateful to our sponsors Swiss Development Cooperation and Ford Foundation and the close association of both Adrian and Ajit at all stages of the Report's progress. And finally, I am immensely grateful to Prabhu, who, exhausted from the first effort, with some persuasion, agreed to author the 2007 report. I also would like to thank my team at ACCESS for the support provided to this effort. Most importantly, I am grateful to the sector at large for their very positive response to last year's report, which encouraged us to raise our ambition for the current year's report, and to persist with the idea of bringing it out annually. I hope the sector will find the State of the Sector Report 2007 equally valuable as last year and continue to support the effort through sharing information, contributing experiences from the field and bringing in their perspectives on the sector. Vipin Sharma CEO, ACCESS Development Services, New Delhi 5 Preface and Acknowledgements Like last year's report on the state of the Indian microfinance sector, this year's seeks to document developments, clarify issues, publicize studies, stimulate research, identify policy choices, generate understanding, and enhance support for the sector. Given the increasing complexity and diversity of the sector, each annual edition of the report can try, but is unlikely to succeed, in being a comprehensive record of everything that happened during the year.
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