Wednesday, September 28, 2016

[MFP] RE: Business Planning with Microfin - Washington DC and London

 

Colleagues,

 

This is one more reminder of the upcoming Business Planning with Microfin seminar in Washington DC October 17 – 21, 2016 as well as similar training in London and Guatemala.  I will need to close registrations for the Washington DC seminar on October 10, in about 12 days, so if you are interested in attending in Washington DC, please contact me as soon as possible.  For those interested in attending in London, the early booking discount has been extended to October 14, 2016, and you are encouraged to contact me soon to take advantage of that $150 discount.  I’m putting together a webinar option for December, so watch for notification of that training in the next few weeks.

 

Microfin training focuses on strategic planning as the basis for creating operational forecasts for program growth, revenue, and expenses.  Tradeoffs regarding interest rate policy, organic vs. exponential growth, and capital structure all will be discussed along with how they relate to operational decisions.  Participants will use a case study approach to learn the Microsoft Excel based tool, and will have a good feel for how to create their own projections when they leave the training.   This will be a very interactive learning process and participants will be encouraged to share experiences, feelings, and ideas regarding the state of the industry as well as successes and challenges currently facing the provision of credit and savings services to the unbanked.  Although not required, bringing a Windows based laptop is encouraged.  Lunch and two coffee breaks will be provided each day.

 

Howard Brady, a seasoned microfinance consultant of 20 years, will teach the workshop.  Howard has been a Microfin instructor with Chuck Waterfield, the original author of the software, since 2000.  In April 2016, Howard assumed the future development and maintenance of Microfin.  Howard's consultancies have helped increase the efficiency and effectiveness of MFIs worldwide, have helped organizations find solutions to delinquency issues, and have created appropriate internal audit and internal control environments.  Howard integrates his first hand experiences into his teaching to provide practical solutions to complex issues facing MFIs today.

 

If you have interest in attending this workshop, please fill out the registration and scholarship form located here:

 

http://microfin.mfiresources.org/training/DC_Microfin_Application_Form_Oct_2016.docx

 

Additional information regarding the training is located here:

 

http://microfin.mfiresources.org/index.php/trainmain/wa-dc-2016-oct

 

Also note that Business Planning with Microfin workshops will be held in London and Guatemala in November.  Information on those workshops can be found at:

 

November 7 - 11, 2016 - London

November 21 - 25, 2016 - Guatemala, IN SPANISH 

 

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact me.

 

Thanks,

 

-howard

Howard Brady

President & CEO

MFI Resources

hbrady@mfiresources.org

tel (206) 546-7067

 

 

__._,_.___
Posted by: "Howard Brady" <hbrady@mfiresources.org>
Reply via web post • Reply to sender • Reply to group • Start a New Topic • Messages in this topic (1)
Have you tried the highest rated email app?
With 4.5 stars in iTunes, the Yahoo Mail app is the highest rated email app on the market. What are you waiting for? Now you can access all your inboxes (Gmail, Outlook, AOL and more) in one place. Never delete an email again with 1000GB of free cloud storage.
WARNING! If you hit REPLY, your message will go to the entire listserve, not just the original author!

.

__,_._,___
No comments:

Sunday, September 25, 2016

Re: [MFP] Financial (Dis-)Information Evidence from a Multi-Country Audit Study

 

Anuj,


Thanks for this. Not surprising but unsettling given that a similar story could be told in the USA. This will be a big help on my upcoming study of financial inclusion in El Salvador and Guatemala. This strengthens the case for the usefulness of informal savings circles and semi-formal Savings Groups. It makes one wonder why these mechanisms are virtually never mentioned in the dialogue about financial inclusion except as a quaint stepping stone on the way to true financial inclusion where they face the issues of high cost, lack of transparency and poor service as documented in the study you cite. In my recent research with immigrants in the USA I find that there is a vast invisible informal financial system based on savings circles that is behind much of immigrant business development and much more. Of course if they are already doing it themselves what's in it for the financial institutions and the NGOs?

Jeff   

Jeffrey Ashe
jaashe@aol.com


-----Original Message-----
From: Anuj Jain ajain@stfx.ca [MicrofinancePractice] <MicrofinancePractice@yahoogroups.com>
To: MicrofinancePractice (MicrofinancePractice@yahoogroups.com) <MicrofinancePractice@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sat, Sep 24, 2016 11:18 pm
Subject: [MFP] Financial (Dis-)Information Evidence from a Multi-Country Audit Study

 
Hi,
 
For those who may not have seen this, it provides an interesting dimension of institutional behaviour providing financial products/ services.
 
Have a look,
 
Anuj
--
 
Financial (Dis-)Information Evidence from a Multi-Country Audit Study
Xavier Giné and Rafael Keenan Mazer
 
Abstract
 
An audit study was conducted in Ghana, Mexico and Peru to understand the quality of financial information and products offered to low-income customers. Trained auditors visited multiple financial institutions, seeking credit and savings products. Consistent with Gabaix and Laibson (2006), staff only provides information about the cost when asked, disclosing less than a third of the total cost voluntarily. In fact, the cost disclosed voluntarily is uncorrelated with the expensiveness of the product.
 
In addition, clients are rarely offered the cheapest product, most likely because staff is incentivized to offer more expensive and thus more profitable products to the institution. This suggests that clients are not provided enough information to be able to compare among products, and that disclosure and transparency policies may be ineffective because they undermine the commercial interest of financial institutions.
 
Some excerpts:
 
"Consistent with these predictions we find that the staff provided enough information to allow auditors to apply for the loan or to open the savings account, but that very little voluntary information about the costs of the product was provided. The transparency index with voluntary disclosure of information is 29 percent for transaction accounts and 18 percent for credit products.6 In addition, the correlation between the cost disclosed voluntarily and the total cost of the product is zero. The transparency index of printed materials given to auditors is 35 percent for transaction accounts and 20 percent for credit products, while the correlation between the cost advertised and the real cost is 0.27. In sum, auditors are provided with too little information to make meaningful comparisons across products. What is remarkable about this finding is that despite the diversity in the quality of financial disclosure regulation across the three countries studied, the staff of financial institutions behave rather similarly.
 
Related, while savings auditors were offered products that matched their preference for maturity, they were rarely offered the cheapest product. For example in Mexico, the only country with a mandated basic savings account, auditors were offered the basic account in only 2 of the 54 visits in which they expressed a preference for a transaction account.7 By contrast, when faced with credit auditors requesting large amounts relative to household income (assigned to the high indebtedness script), financial institutions significantly reduced the amount granted if the application was finally approved.
 
Thus, firms seem to follow their own self-interest, which may explain why recent policy initiatives around product transparency and basic savings accounts have been met with little success. The limited impact of policies to promote transparency and mandated products is not new, and in this sense the paper contributes to the recent literature that uses audit studies to assess financial advice for financial investment (Mullainathan et al, 2012) and life insurance (Anagol et al, 2012)."
 
 
 
Anuj K. Jain
Sr. Coady Fellow| Microfinance and Development| COADY International Institute
St. Francis Xavier University, Antigonish, Nova Scotia, B2G 2W5| Ph: 902-872-0521
A Coady Educational Experience.
Now accepting applications for 2017 programs.
 
 

__._,_.___
Posted by: jaashe@aol.com
Reply via web post • Reply to sender • Reply to group • Start a New Topic • Messages in this topic (2)
Have you tried the highest rated email app?
With 4.5 stars in iTunes, the Yahoo Mail app is the highest rated email app on the market. What are you waiting for? Now you can access all your inboxes (Gmail, Outlook, AOL and more) in one place. Never delete an email again with 1000GB of free cloud storage.
WARNING! If you hit REPLY, your message will go to the entire listserve, not just the original author!

.

__,_._,___
No comments:

Saturday, September 24, 2016

[MFP] Financial (Dis-)Information Evidence from a Multi-Country Audit Study

 

Hi,

 

For those who may not have seen this, it provides an interesting dimension of institutional behaviour providing financial products/ services.

 

Have a look,

 

Anuj

--

 

Financial (Dis-)Information Evidence from a Multi-Country Audit Study

Xavier Giné and Rafael Keenan Mazer

 

Abstract

 

An audit study was conducted in Ghana, Mexico and Peru to understand the quality of financial information and products offered to low-income customers. Trained auditors visited multiple financial institutions, seeking credit and savings products. Consistent with Gabaix and Laibson (2006), staff only provides information about the cost when asked, disclosing less than a third of the total cost voluntarily. In fact, the cost disclosed voluntarily is uncorrelated with the expensiveness of the product.

 

In addition, clients are rarely offered the cheapest product, most likely because staff is incentivized to offer more expensive and thus more profitable products to the institution. This suggests that clients are not provided enough information to be able to compare among products, and that disclosure and transparency policies may be ineffective because they undermine the commercial interest of financial institutions.

 

Some excerpts:

 

"Consistent with these predictions we find that the staff provided enough information to allow auditors to apply for the loan or to open the savings account, but that very little voluntary information about the costs of the product was provided. The transparency index with voluntary disclosure of information is 29 percent for transaction accounts and 18 percent for credit products.6 In addition, the correlation between the cost disclosed voluntarily and the total cost of the product is zero. The transparency index of printed materials given to auditors is 35 percent for transaction accounts and 20 percent for credit products, while the correlation between the cost advertised and the real cost is 0.27. In sum, auditors are provided with too little information to make meaningful comparisons across products. What is remarkable about this finding is that despite the diversity in the quality of financial disclosure regulation across the three countries studied, the staff of financial institutions behave rather similarly.

 

Related, while savings auditors were offered products that matched their preference for maturity, they were rarely offered the cheapest product. For example in Mexico, the only country with a mandated basic savings account, auditors were offered the basic account in only 2 of the 54 visits in which they expressed a preference for a transaction account.7 By contrast, when faced with credit auditors requesting large amounts relative to household income (assigned to the high indebtedness script), financial institutions significantly reduced the amount granted if the application was finally approved.

 

Thus, firms seem to follow their own self-interest, which may explain why recent policy initiatives around product transparency and basic savings accounts have been met with little success. The limited impact of policies to promote transparency and mandated products is not new, and in this sense the paper contributes to the recent literature that uses audit studies to assess financial advice for financial investment (Mullainathan et al, 2012) and life insurance (Anagol et al, 2012)."

 

 

 

Anuj K. Jain

Sr. Coady Fellow| Microfinance and Development| COADY International Institute

St. Francis Xavier University, Antigonish, Nova Scotia, B2G 2W5| Ph: 902-872-0521

A Coady Educational Experience.

Now accepting applications for 2017 programs.

 

 

__._,_.___
Posted by: Anuj Jain <ajain@stfx.ca>
Reply via web post • Reply to sender • Reply to group • Start a New Topic • Messages in this topic (1)
Have you tried the highest rated email app?
With 4.5 stars in iTunes, the Yahoo Mail app is the highest rated email app on the market. What are you waiting for? Now you can access all your inboxes (Gmail, Outlook, AOL and more) in one place. Never delete an email again with 1000GB of free cloud storage.
WARNING! If you hit REPLY, your message will go to the entire listserve, not just the original author!

.

__,_._,___
No comments:

Thursday, September 22, 2016

[MFP] Article on SEEP and Savings Group Linkages

 

I thought this was worth a share: 


What leads to market-led linkage between banks and informal groups?

 

Best,

Kirsten Weiss

__._,_.___
Posted by: kweiss2001@gmail.com
Reply via web post • Reply to sender • Reply to group • Start a New Topic • Messages in this topic (1)
Have you tried the highest rated email app?
With 4.5 stars in iTunes, the Yahoo Mail app is the highest rated email app on the market. What are you waiting for? Now you can access all your inboxes (Gmail, Outlook, AOL and more) in one place. Never delete an email again with 1000GB of free cloud storage.
WARNING! If you hit REPLY, your message will go to the entire listserve, not just the original author!

.

__,_._,___
No comments:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)