Questions for session 11

Taking Stock of Microfinance: Does it really help the poor?

Date: Thursday, November 19, 2009 

Time: 6:30-8:30 pm

Location: Warren Hall, room 208

RSVP appreciated but not required: Please click here

 

While microfinance has been hailed as one of the most effective tools for development and poverty alleviation, critics of microfinance argue that microfinance institutions don't serve the poorest of the poor and may actually increase poverty by burdening the poor with unpayable debt.  From a donor perspective, such institutions may be financially unstable and may not deliver as well as promised on indicators of social well-being.  SIPA's Microfinance Working Group invites you to join us for a special panel discussion on the social impacts of microfinance: Taking Stock of Microfinance: Does it Really Help the Poor.

 

Panelists:

1.       Jonathan Morduch, Professor of Economics and Public Policy at NYU, Director of Financial Access Initiative, and leading researcher in the field of microfinance and impact evaluation.

2.       Richard Rosenberg, Senior Advisor to the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (a World Bank unit), former Deputy Director of USAID’s Center for Economic Growth.

3.       Micol Pistelli, Director of the Social Performance Program at the Mix Market .

4.       Janiece Green, Director of the Women's Market at Women's World Banking

Moderator: Louise Schneider, Vice President of Global Social Investment at Deutsche Bank and Former Senior Director of Capital Markets at Women’s World Banking.

 

Kiva's lack of trasparency?

A couple of people in class sent out articles about David Roodman's Microfinance Open Book Blog on Kiva's lack of trasparency.
Enjoy the back to back with the founder of Kiva, Matt Flannery

http://blogs.cgdev.org/open_book/2009/10/matt-flannery-kiva-ceo-and-co-founder-replies.php

Microfinance group in CDO scheme

The article Antony has mentioned in class on Deutsche Bank and a major microfinance company trying to rehabilitate CDO as a mean for microfinance market.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c4eb7b5c-ceff-11de-8a4b-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1

Enjoy!

Questions for session 9

Cellphone banking becoming more popular with customers

Cellphone banking has overtaken Internet banking as the most popular mode of doing banking, the ‘Mobility 2009’ survey results revealed on Tuesday.

The second phase of this survey, which was conducted by business technology research company World Wide Worx (WWW) and sponsored by banking firm First National Bank (FNB) and mobile technology company Blackberry, highlighted that 28% of customers were now using cellphone banking, compared with 17% in 2007.

Trust is the main factor for people not using cellphone banking, followed by the lack of know-how.

In South Africa, more people are currently using cellphone banking than Internet banking. About 10% of customers use cellphone and Internet banking, 6% use only Internet banking, 18% use only cellphone banking and 66% of customers in South Africa do not use any electronic channels.

The services that are driving cellphone banking are balance enquiries, transaction notification and airtime purchases. Prepaid services, such as airtime and electricity, show large growth.

Consumer field research provider Dashboard’s MD Peter Searll said that the survey found that the highest satisfaction experienced from cellphone banking is notifications.

FNB Commerce CEO Len Pienaar revealed that cellphone penetration at the bank is reaching one-third of all customers.

In September 2009, FNB processed transactions worth R745-million through different interactive cellphone banking services. It currently has over one-million registered cellphone banking customers, with the black working-class citizen as the average cellphone banker.

“Cellphone banking is the first technology that crosses income, generation and racial barriers,” said Pienaar.

He pointed out that unstructured supplementary service data, which is a simple text exchange service that allows the display of menus on a mobile phone, enabling users to interact with these menus, will introduce cellphone banking into Africa, as it is as easy and simple to use as short message systems. Cellphone banking on wireless application protocol is also a trend that is expected to grow.

Pienaar said that entry-level market cellphone banking has become the primary customer interface, as it has become an important, common and alternative banking channel.

“All cellphone banking market segments have reached exponential growth rates especially in entry-level segments,” he concluded.

Meanwhile, WWW MD Arthur Goldstuck said at a presentation of the findings that features and affordability are key drivers in the use of cellphones. Email and Internet applications are the biggest areas of proportional growth, while the camera application is currently the most widely used features on a cellphone, but will not offer market growth to manufacturers.

 

http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/cellphone-banking-becoming-more-popular-with-bankers-2009-11-03

 

Reminder - Agora Partnerships Event Tomorrow Night

For those of you that haven’t already bought your tickets, please join us tomorrow night for a celebration of Agora Partnerships 4th Anniversary.  This is really a great organization - I worked with them over in the summer assisting them with their El Salvador expansion plan and I promise that you will have a great time at the event. Agora promotes economic development in Central American countries by investing directly in and providing technical assistance and consulting services to small businesses. These small businesses can be engines for accelerating development and Agora provides capital that is badly lacking and addresses the “missing middle” (bigger than microfinance clients but smaller than traditional bank clients). Agora's approach to helping businesses and its dedication to building a culture of entrepreneurship in the developing world is incredibly inspiring. The event promises to be a lot of fun and you will get a chance to hear from Agora's co-founders, Ben Powell and Ricardo Teran.
 
Date:    Tuesday November 3
Time:    6:30-9:30
Place:   Gabarron Foundation, Carriage House Center for the Arts 149 East 28th St. (at Lexington)

Purchase tickets at: www.agorapartnerships.org

Hope to see you there!




Melissa Cheong
Columbia Business School  2009
mcheong09@gsb.columbia.edu

Nov. 4 sangria social hour with Bugg-Levine & classmates!

We’ve arranged for the school to cap off our Nov. 4 make-up class by buying us cocktails at Havana Central!  Specifically, CBS will spring for 9 pitchers of sangria, which amounts to one glass for each of the 45 students.  So head on over to Havana Central (2911 Broadway, between 113th & 114th Streets) when class ends around 9 pm.  The restaurant is setting aside a portion of the back room for us, providing a few tables and chairs and plenty of space to mill around and mingle with Professor Bugg-Levine and the classmates whom you rarely sit next to but are dying to talk to.  You’re free to order other drinks and eats as well, but you’ll need to pay for those.  Also, feel free to invite spouses, partners, and others who are eager to socialize with our awesome class; however, our school subsidy is only large enough to cover the students enrolled in the class, so please make sure your guests know they’ll need to pay for whatever they order.

 

Let me know if you have any questions, and hope to see you at Havana Central!

Nicole C. Wong

Knight-Bagehot Fellow in Business & Economics, 2009-10
Columbia University
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Email: nwong10@gsb.columbia.edu
Twitter:  @nicolecwong
Website: www.nicolecwong.com

 

Doing Business 2010: A record in business regulation reform

Since 2004 Doing Business has been tracking regulatory reforms aimed at improving the ease of doing business. Despite the challenges presented by the financial crisis, the number of reforms hit a record level this year. Between June 2008 and May 2009, 287 reforms were recorded in 131 economies, 20% more than the year before. Reformers focused on making it easier to start and operate a business, strengthening property rights and improving the efficiency of commercial dispute resolution and bankruptcy procedures.


Download the Doing Business 2010 overview
http://www.doingbusiness.org/features/Highlights2010.aspx

Questions for session 8