Microfinance companies on Thursday agreed to reduce interest rates they charged from borrowers to 24 percent after a meeting with financial services secretary R Gopalan here.
A cut in rates comes from as high as 34 percent in the backdrop of an unsavory situation in Andhra Pradesh, where many borrowers have committed suicides apparently due to coercive methods adopted by microfinance institutions (MFIs) to recover money. Read more Economic Times
MFI Regulation Bill Approved in Andhra Pradesh
The state cabinet on Wednesday approved the A P Micro Finance Institutions (Regulation of Money Lending), Bill. The bill will replace the A P Micro Finance Institutions (Regulation of Money Lending) Ordinance which was issued on October 15. Read more on FullHyderabad.com
Certain loose practices were developing in the housing sector
Reserve Bank of India governor D SUBBARAO moved swiftly to curtail some malpractices in the housing loan segment in the monetary policy review on Tuesday. In an interview with GEORGE MATHEW, he spoke about the home loan segment, capital flows, GDP growth, asset price build-up and the microfinance sector. Read more on Financial Express
An Increasingly Important Debate: Microfinance as a Non-Profit or Possible IPO?
Please watch the recent debate between the founder of the Not for Profit Grameen Foundation, Alex Counts, and the founder of the once Not for Profit organization, Indian SKS Microfinance, Vikram Akula. SKS became a For-Profit company in 2005 and went public in 2010 with an IPO raising $358 Million.
Both focused on Microfinance, loaning to the world’s “poor”. The Grameen Foundation’s fund manages $25 million for MFIs around the world and includes a technology focus as well. Both Alex Counts and Vikram Akula worked with Muhammad Yunus and the original Grameen Bank lending model. Read more on Huffington Post
