Two groups of students from the University of Pennsylvania spent approximately one month of their summers in India — one working for Grameen Koota in Bangalore for the month of May, and the other working for Grama Vidiyal in Trichy for the month of August.
The May Bangalore group researched the feasibility of individualized loans on behalf of Grameen Koota. The August Trichy group (1) worked with Intellecap to value operations and (2) provided on-site feedback and suggestions for operational improvement. More updates are soon to follow, including the May group’s final research report.
We also realized that some posts’ links were not working. They are all fixed now. If you have any questions, please email me at antonber at gmail dot com.
Wharton Microfinance Independent Study Lesson 7A
This lesson approaches the idea of leveraging the pre-existing infrastructures in commercial banking institutions and leveraging them to tackle poverty through microfinance. This lesson is focused around the Kazakhstan Small Business Programme.
Lesson Resources
Wharton Microfinance Independent Study Lesson 6B
This lesson discusses MFI financing excluding securitization (unlike the earlier lesson). It covers the basics regarding evaluation (see the lesson on MFI evaluation to learn more), an overview of currently operating investors, and a few current events updates.
Lesson Resources
Wharton Microfinance Independent Study Lesson 6A
This lesson discusses how MFIs finance their portfolios — with the two prime instruments being deposits (savings mobilization) and securitization of portfolio cash flows. Oftentimes countries have managed to borrow at relatively low rates from foreign capital markets by securitizing cash flows from less risky debtors. How can this be applied to microfinance and the institutions that practice it?
Lesson Resources
Wharton Microfinance Independent Study Lesson 5A
This lesson provides some insight into how ACCION measures the social success of its institutions through local and global poverty assessment. Discusses the CGAP model, AMIS method, poverty lines and the beginning of data analysis.
Lesson Resources
Wharton Microfinance Independent Study Lesson 5B
This lesson covers aspects of the term “double bottome line” — the profit line and the social impact line. We see both as necessary for a successful and sustainable microfinance initiative, but focus on the social impact bottom line in this particular lesson.
Lesson Resources
Wharton Microfinance Independent Study Lesson 4B
This lesson provides a perspective on how microfinance institutions evaluate productivity, progress and financial performance, including delinquency and portfolio quality, as well as financial sustainability (profitability, sustainability and cost-efficiency, ROA, ROE, operational sufficiency, and so forth). We also discuss skill acquisition, including the use of programs and inputs, key measures and outputs/predictions. In this case, we’ll be looking at Microfin and Symbanc, both of which are Excel based.
Lesson Resources
Wharton Microfinance Independent Study Lesson 4A
In Lesson 4A, we elaborate on a model that ACCION adopted for internal microfinance assessment. The methodology, known as CAMEL, was “adopted by North American bank regulators to evaluate the financial and managerial soundness of U.S. commercial lending institutions.” This lesson covers necessary accounting adjustments, the 21 key indicators that define the CAMEL rating (rated 0 to 5, 5 being highest) and a short blurb on four other assessment tools, including MicroRate and WOCCU PEARLS.
Attachments are below. Please feel free to discuss this course.
Lesson Resources
Wharton Microfinance Independent Study Lesson 3B
This lesson covers the basics, but in detail. What is an institution? What’s the difference between formal and informal institutions? Who generally owns these institutions and how does management function? How do these institutions get funded?
Lesson Resources
Wharton Microfinance Independent Study Lesson 3A
This lesson deals solely with staff incentives — how can microfinance institutions best incentivize staff on all levels, from management to extensionist? This module deals with the philosophy of incentives, types of schemes and several cases.
Lesson Resources
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