Microfinance is the array of financial services, including loans, savings and insurance, available to Poor entrepreneurs and small business owners who have no collateral and would not otherwise qualify for a standard bank loan. Recent proliferation of microfinance market has swiftly increased the competition in microfinance Indian market, new technology and new devices are emerging at phenomal ...

OBJECTIVE This study aims to examine the associations between microfinance programme membership and intimate partner violence (IPV) in different socioeconomic strata of a nationally representative sample of women in Bangladesh. METHODS The cross-sectional study was based on a nationally representative interview survey of 11 178 ever-married women of reproductive age (15-49 years). A total of ...

OBJECTIVE To explore whether adding a gender and HIV training programme to microfinance initiatives can lead to health and social benefits beyond those achieved by microfinance alone. METHODS Cross-sectional data were derived from three randomly selected matched clusters in rural South Africa: (i) four villages with 2-year exposure to the Intervention with Microfinance for AIDS and Gender Equ...

Microfinance sector has witnessed a burgeoning outreach under microfinance institutions model which poses a question on the sustainability of the programme. Even if repayment rate for the major MFIs are greater than 95 %, it may neither be an appropriate indicator of institutional sustainability nor on impact. In this paper an examination on the outreach and sustainability of microfinance insti...

The main purpose of this paper is to examine the relevance of Islamic microfinance in the light of ongoing erosion of confidence in the viability of current financial system, full of speculatory finance in the prevailing global financial market. For example, the sub-prime crisis of 2007-2008 in the US with its effects all over the world was mainly due to the inadequate market discipline which i...

microfinance, banking to the poor, is a recent global phenomenon introduced as a way for combating the poverty in the 1970’s. before that the poor were not allowed access to credit and loans due to the widespread belief that the poor could not repay loans. but microfinance movement with financial innovations reduced the costs and risks of lending to poor households, and presented as tool for re...

Donors, governments, microfinance networks, and foundations have promoted housing microfinance (“HMF”) for a decade. Considerable operational experience has accrued on this practice over this time. Meanwhile, many emerging economies have grown rapidly, which has changed housing markets and the context for HMF. The moment, then, is auspicious for a re-examination of housing microfinance and its ...

This paper attempts to provide a critical appraisal of the debate on the effectiveness of microfinance as a universal poverty reduction tool. It argues that while microfinance has developed some innovative management and business strategies, its impact on poverty reduction remains in doubt. Microfinance, however, certainly plays an important role in providing safety-net and consumption smoothen...

OBJECTIVE To quantify the impact of cash transfer and microfinance interventions on a selected list of tuberculosis (TB) risk factors and assess their potential role in supporting TB control. DATA SOURCE Published and unpublished references identified from clinical and social electronic databases, grey literature and web sites. METHODS Eligible interventions had to be conducted in middle- o...

BACKGROUND Despite Uganda's progress in promoting affirmative action for persons with disabilities and its strategy of using microfinance to fight poverty, access to microfinance services by persons with disabilities is still problematic due to barriers, characterised by discrepancies between policies and practices. Regarding education, the affirmative action in favour of learners with disabili...