After backpacking around northern India for a week, I took an intra-country flight to the south and arrived in Chennai. The differences between northern and southern India are quite striking. As the scripts on street signs change so does the reason for my trip.
My purpose in Chennai is to help coordinate a microfinance conference for ShoreCap Exchange, the company with which I intern. The organizations encourage peer learning exchange between banks in order to increase access to financial services in underserved communities globally. During the last week of March, ShoreCap Exchange hosted 10 institutions at a branch management forum. Participants came from countries in Asia and Africa, including Cambodia, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Rwanda, the Gambia, Kenya, and Mongolia.
Microfinance is a relatively new movement in international development that straddles the public, private, and nonprofit sectors. Microfinance institutions (also known as MFIs) are funded with money from international donors (such as governmental aid programs), private funds, or nonprofits. Part of a larger trend towards “inclusive finance,” MFIs, alongside regulated banks, provide a variety of financial products at a reasonable cost to those who would not otherwise have access to them.
No comments:
Post a Comment