MicroRate’s Role Reversal Revisited: Are public development institutions still crowding out?finds development financial institutions (DFIs) are actively competing with private microfinance funds – also called microfinance investment vehicles or MIVs – harming the flow of private investment into the microfinance sector.
The State of Microfinance Investment 2011, surveys microfinance investment vehicles (MIVs) to highlight the trends and outlook for the industry. Based on interviews with executives of the major microfinance investment funds and a survey of the 101 active MIVs, this report examines the key factors that affected the microfinance fund market in 2010 and the trends that are likely to drive growth in 2011 and beyond.
MicroRate released its fourth annual Microfinance Investment Vehicle (MIV) Survey in August of 2008. According to the survey, in 2007 microfinance funding through MIVs grew to US$3.066 billion from nearly US$1.481 billion in 2006. Click here to view the 2007 MIV Survey Summary or the2007 MIV Survey Presentation.
The rapid growth of foreign private lending to microfinance institutions (MFIs) in the last several years has led to a surprising reversal of roles between government-owned development agencies and private lenders. Development institutions (International Financial Institutions -“IFIs”) are concentrating their loans in the strongest MFIs, leaving private lenders to look for opportunities among smaller, riskier borrowers. Development institutions are “crowding” private lenders out of the best MFIs. Click here to read Role Reversal
During the last few years a new type of intermediary has evolved, that mobilizes funds from investors in rich countries and channels them to MFIs in the developing world. Popularly known as “Microfinance Funds”, entities that raise money and channel it to microfinance institutions (MFIs) are only rarely “Funds” in a legal sense. They are therefore collectively referred to as Microfinance Investment Vehicles (MIVs). These microfinance investment vehicles (“MIVs”) are the subject of this review. Click here to read this survey.
MFI Performance Technical Guide
The lack of universally understood indicators in microfinance led MicroRate to pioneer a set of indicators specific to the microfinance industry for the evaluations of MFIs. MicroRate has organized this set of indicators into its Technical Guide, which is recognized industry-wide.
MFI Performance Technical Guide