Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / This thesis makes a theoretical review of the microfinance argument, which claims that microfinance would be accompanied with democratization or consolidation of democracy. This thesis firstly analyzes the theory of modern microfinance, especially its propensity of converting borrowers into modern citizens. Secondly, this thesis analyzes five major theories supporting the microfinance argument: (a) modernization and economic development, (b) economic fairness, (c) gender justice, (d) social capital, and (e) civil society. In addition, this thesis reviews critical perspectives of these five theories and makes a general discussion. Finally, this thesis concludes the reasonableness and limitation of the microfinance argument.

No description available.

El texto completo de este trabajo no está disponible en el Repositorio Académico UPC por restricciones de la casa editorial donde ha sido publicado. / Microfinance allows the integration of all sectors for the country's economic growth. Data duplicity, invalid data and the inability to have reliable data for decision-making are generated without a formal Governance. For this reason, Data Governance is the key to enable an autonomous, productive and reliable work environment for the use of these. Although Data Governance models already exist, in most cases they don't meet the requirements of the sector, which has its own characteristics, such as the volume exponential growth, data criticality, and regulatory frameworks to which it is exposed. The purpose of this research is to design a reference model for the microfinance organizations, supported by an evaluation tool that provides a diagnosis with the objective of implementing and improving the organization processes regarding Data Governance. This model was implemented based on the information of Peru's microfinance organizations, from which a 1.72 score was diagnosed, which is encouraging for the organization, since it shows that it has defined all its plans concerning Data Governance. Finally, after the validation, it was concluded that the model serves as a medium to identify the current status of these organizations to ensure the success of the Data Governance initiatives.

The poor need a range of financial services to cope with shocks, to manage day-to-day transactions, and to grasp business opportunities, among others. To be successful in reaching the poor, microfinance institutions should offer products that meet the poor’s needs. Product design, therefore, is becoming a very important topic. “Behavioral” product design pinpoints the importance of individuals’ behavioral anomalies, such as procrastination behavior and lack of self-control. Financial products are seen as commitment devices to help individuals diverting money from immediate consumption to savings and investment.<p>This doctoral thesis contributes to this recent research stream by first surveying the literature on product design in microfinance, and then providing an empirical and a theoretical contribution. Precisely, the thesis is structured in four chapters. Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 are both reviewing the literature. Chapter 1, titled “Product Flexibility in Microfinance: A Survey”, reviews the academic literature on product flexibility in microfinance and offers a categorization scheme of flexible microfinance products. Chapter 2, titled “Innovative Flexible Products in Microfinance”, scrutinizes nine real-life practices covering microcredit, micro-savings and micro-insurance services that mix flexible features and commitment devices. Chapter 3, titled “The Debt Puzzle in Dhaka’s Slums: Do Liquidity Needs Explain Co-Holding?”, examines the use of flexible savings-and-loan accounts by SafeSave’s clients and tests whether the need for liquidity explains why the poor save and borrow simultaneously. Lastly, Chapter 4, titled “Having it Both Ways: A Theory of the Banking Firm with Time-consistent and Time-inconsistent Depositors,” proposes a theoretical model to determine the liquidity premium offered by a monopolistic bank to a pool of depositors composed of time-consistent and time-inconsistent agents. / Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

This thesis is made of two parts. Part I (Chapter 1 to 3) focuses on the ethical aspects of the current challenges in microfinance. Chapter 1 addresses the question of the place and importance of credit in development policies, through the debate on the right to credit. Chapter 2 and 3 then question the fairness of the interest rates charged by the microfinance institutions. Chapter 2 analyzes whether the fairness criteria depend on more basic principles of justice, such as Rawls’ principles described in A Theory of Justice (Rawsl, 1976). Chapter 3 then reviews some of the implicit and explicit definitions of fair interest rates and proposes an original methodology, with David Gauthiers’ contractuarian theory. It determines what a fair interest rate would be when lending to the poor. Based on the results of the two first chapters, Part II (Chapter 4 to 6) focuses on the role of donors in microfinance. Chapters 4 and 5 use two original databases, of 67 and 100 MFIs respectively to study the impact of subsidies on the MFIs’ management, through their rating evaluation (Chapter 4) and MFIs’ performance and management decisions (Chapter 5). Chapter 4 will analyze the relationship between the quality of management, as rated by a specialized agency, and the amount of subsidies. Chapter 5 will study pricing policy, the clientele and the potential moral hazard of subsidized institutions. Concluding this analysis, Chapter 6 gives some guidelines on the use of donor subsidies, especially in their interaction with the new private commercial actors, such as investment funds.

Thesis advisor: Hiroshi Nakazato / Microcredit has been praised and criticized for its reputation as the solution to global poverty—helping the poor help themselves. The economists have focused on the impossibility of a sustainable microfinance system, whereas other scholars have commended the social advancements that MFIs have supported, especially in relation to gender inequality. This conceptual thesis specifically studies the effects of microfinance institutions on women’s empowerment—first defining ‘empowerment’ and then observing it in various case studies. My research supports the conclusion that microfinance is a useful economic aid and more importantly it spearheads the fight for women’s rights. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2011. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: International Studies Honors Program. / Discipline: International Studies.

Thesis (M.M. (Finance & Investment)--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, Wits Business School, 2016. / The primary aim of the microfinance initiative is to eradicate poverty especially in developing countries. This is possible through the provision of micro-loans, microsavings and insurance to previously disadvantaged communities. Entrepreneurship is the role that individuals undertake to create, an organization, product from an idea to implementation. With high unemployment and poverty levels, Swaziland is engaging the Microfinance Institutions and entrepreneurship to help drive employment, and poverty alleviation. The study assessed several issues: Does microfinance contribute to Improvements in the economic welfare of borrowers’ households, enterprise growth, diversification or stability? Do entrepreneur development programs; like training workshops have an impact on participant’s attitude and behavior in conducting entrepreneurship activities. Is there a relationship between microfinance institution growth and entrepreneurship development? Results indicated that microfinance institutions were still sorely focusing on providing credit and credit facilities, which meant that it had positive effects on capital assets but not the overall welfare of entrepreneurs. The behaviors that programs influenced were also in relation to credit, and not other aspects of entrepreneurship like innovation and technology. This meant that there’s a gap in the effect of microfinance institutions on entrepreneurship growth as indicated chisquare was significant at 9.43 indicating no effect on the sampled population. Therefore it is important that Microfinance institutions focus on the primary objective of developmental finance. They need to prioritize training programs that will cultivate a culture of building sound businesses, with proper risk management, and are willing to adapt to change. As currently the key focus seems to be on credit facilitation which could be profit driven? / GR2018

Thesis advisor: Richard McGowan / Thesis advisor: Robert Murphy / Microfinance has been heralded as the solution to global poverty by optimists in the development field. Many regard the practice of extending unprecedented financial access to the poor through small loans as a necessary and important tool in the development process. The industry has grown and changed shape over the last two decades and recently has come under fire. The new face of microfinance has included for-profit lenders, usurious interest rates, loan sharks, and suicides. Many critics are beginning to question the ethics, practices and efficacy of microfinance. They claim that microfinance cannot make more than a marginal impact on poverty, and more serious development efforts should address structural causes of underdevelopment. This paper will examine the effects microfinance on extreme poverty as defined by the poverty headcount ratio at $2 a day and $1.25 a day. The study will focus on the Latin America and Caribbean. Through regression analysis, this paper measures the effects of microfinance on the poverty rate while controlling for structural economic changes. We will conclude that microfinance has a statistically significant effect on extreme poverty in this region. These results are an important response to critics who posit that the costs of microfinance outweigh the benefits. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2011. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Economics Honors Program. / Discipline: Economics.

Cette recherche est une contribution au débat sur la possibilité de concilier rentabilité, faible coût du crédit et large portée relative des institutions de microfinance. Elle discute aussi l’efficacité des subventions accordées à ces institutions. Enfin elle cherche à articuler la microfinance et la croissance économique dans les pays d’Afrique subsaharienne. Notre étude produit des résultats qui tendent à montrer qu’en Afrique subsaharienne les institutions de microfinance issues de la privatisation directe ou indirecte d’anciens réseaux de collecte étatiques ont une rentabilité négative mais touchent un grand nombre de personnes. A l’inverse les institutions de microfinance d’origine locale ont une taille relative beaucoup plus faible, leur part dans la distribution du crédit total à l’économie est faible, mais elles sont rentables. Deuxièmement la politique de subventions doit encourager les institutions à devenir autonomes plutôt que chercher à pérenniser les situations acquises d’endettement, tout en cherchant à réduire l’effet des coûts fixes sur le taux du crédit. Finalement, de la nature de la politique économique dépendra le développement relatif des secteurs formel et informel. Par exemple, une politique monétaire restrictive favorisera le secteur informel alors qu’une politique monétaire expansionniste favorisera le secteur formel. / The aim of this dissertation is to contribute on the debate about the possibility to reconcile return, low cost of credit and high relative outreach of microfinance institutions. It deals with efficiency of the granted subsidies to these institutions and at last with the interaction between microfinance and economic growth in sub-Saharan Africa. The results of our study tend first of all to suggest that, in sub-Saharan Africa, microfinance institutions coming from the direct or indirect privatization of public development banks have a negative return but a high level of outreach, whereas microfinance institutions coming from local groups have a relative low size but are profitable and self-sufficient. The ratio of their gross loan portfolio to total loan is marginal. Secondly, subsidy policy should enforce microfinance institutions to become self-sufficient rather than perpetuate overdraft situations coming from the past. It should also aim at reducing fixed cost on loan rate. The development of formal and informal markets will depend on the nature of economic policy: a restrictive monetary policy will increase the informal market while an expansionist monetary policy will increase the formal market.

The protection of consumers of financial services has attracted a lot of debates following the global financial crisis of 2007 to 2009. As a result, there have been series of reforms in a number of jurisdictions across the globe. Despite this development some countries still lag behind and Nigeria is no exception. This study examines the problems of consumer protection in Nigeria, with specific reference to the bank consumers. The aim is to consider whether the Nigeria consumer protection regime provides "sufficient protection to bank consumers and whether it should be reformed". The study also focuses on the role of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in consumer protection, its dispute resolution mechanism and the practical challenges. The test of sufficiency will be analysed and discussed, using 'consistency', 'efficiency' and 'accessibility' in order to illustrate the existing weaknesses in resolving consumer dispute. The approach in this study is doctrinal analysis. In all, the findings suggest that there is need, to reform the consumer protection regime in the banking sector and enforce laws which will address issues highlighted in the study to enable the users of banking services in Nigeria to obtain an appropriate level of protection through regulatory processes. This study, therefore, also provides a comparative analysis between United Kingdom and Nigeria, using current consumer protection framework in the United Kingdom in making proposals for the needed reforms in Nigeria. The study thus concludes with the recommendation that the current Nigerian consumer protection regime does not offer adequate protection; hence protecting consumers require a holistic approach which includes effective consumer protection framework, enforcement, coordination and cooperation from different stakeholders.