Category Archives: Microfinance

An alternative to rural microfinance – complementary currency

Posted on June 10, 2011 by Admin

I’ve been reading Bernard Lietaer’s amazing book “The Future of Money” which has opened my eyes to some very interesting alternative ways to look at the economy.  I’ve been interested in alternative currencies for some time, but he makes a … Continue reading →

Posted in Currencies, Economics, Microfinance, Product Development | View Comments

An alternative view of the value of microfinance institutions

Posted on June 6, 2011 by Admin

Recent research has shown that the case  for microfinance improving the lives of it’s clients is at best mixed – several studies have shown statistically insignificant different in quality of life indicators between clients with access to microfinance and a … Continue reading →

Posted in Microfinance | View Comments

Recruiting: Android Lead Developer

Posted on April 21, 2011 by Admin

Deadline: 10 May, 2011 About this position Radical Finance is a startup developing next generation Android mobile software applications to help microfinance banks manage their remote field staff.  The two founders have extensive experience in mobile and microfinance and have secured … Continue reading →

Posted in Emerging Markets, Entrepreneurship, Microfinance, Recruiting | View Comments

Mobile money for MFI’s – a blind alley?

Posted on February 17, 2011 by Admin

I’m starting to hear reports from Kenya that clients are preferring to repay pay in cash rather than using M-Pesa because they don’t want to pay the fees. The main problem is cost, as mobile money is regulated and maintaining … Continue reading →

Posted in Emerging Markets, Microfinance, Mobile Banking | View Comments

The difference between microfinance and retail banking

Posted on January 26, 2011 by Admin

When I first went to Africa to work in Microfinance I remember being told by a rather snooty donor lady from Washington that I had no place being there because microfinance was different to retail banking so my experience was … Continue reading →

Posted in Emerging Markets, Microfinance | View Comments

The customer experience of savings on the mobile phone

Posted on September 18, 2010 by Admin

Regular readers of this blog will not be suprised to learn that I’m extremely interested in the problem of how to make savings products for the unbanked work on the mobile phone. So I made this short video which illustrates … Continue reading →

Posted in Microfinance, Mobile Banking | View Comments

Some ideas for driving savings usage…

Posted on September 11, 2010 by Admin

How can we generate savings for poor people? It’s an interesting problem I’ve been thinking about a lot recently and today I’ve been researching SMARTYPIG. Some of the key marketing ideas which they use which we could think about: • … Continue reading →

Posted in Internet, Microfinance | View Comments

Why P2P won’t work for Microloans

Posted on August 31, 2010 by Admin

Interesting article here about P2P lending for MicroFinance. Zidisha seems to be operating in Sengal with plans to expand shortly to Indonesia – I’m pretty surprised they are already looking to expand to other countries as they’ve only lent $10,000 … Continue reading →

Posted in Internet, Microfinance, Mobile Banking, Product Development | View Comments

Do the poor really need savings?

Posted on June 4, 2010 by Admin

There is a lot of pressure from the leaders in the microfinance and development worlds to increase the poor’s access to savings products. Part of this stems from the recent analysis which shows micro-credit does less than expected to reduce … Continue reading →

Posted in Microfinance | Tagged , | View Comments

M-Kesha – more detailed results

Posted on May 29, 2010 by Admin

Finally got hold of the information I was looking for on M-Kesha. Overall, the pricing is even worse than I modeled – deposits are free but withdrawals incur the full P2P fee.  The short term loan economics are: LACE Withdraw … Continue reading →

Posted in Microfinance, Mobile Banking, Product Development | Tagged | View Comments