Microfinance and microcredit

Thank you for reading our articles and following the blog about microfinance and microcredit. This website started as a project in the university when I studied in Germany, and is now a big source of microfinanceinformation with many visitor from all around the world. It´s quite obvious, microfinance is something that really brings the world together to cooperate for a better and sustainable future. There is so many people needing financing to get up on their feet and start their own lifes, especially now on Haiti after the catastrophic earthquake, and still there´s such a big lack of creditpossibilities.

That´s why it´s so important that you support microfinanceinfo.com to help us spread the word, and it does not cost you a thing. You can give your support in several ways. The easiest way is by becoming a fan our facebookpage, or follow our twitterpage. You can also add a small linklogo on your site, if you have one that is.

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If you would do all three of them, we really appreciate it and thank you by doing that!

The first microcredit loan i´ve been supporting is now fully funded to Bwizi Livestock Marketing Group in Uganda.

A total of 124 Kiva Lenders financed the $4,975.00 loan requested by Jackson Mutesigensi, Sylivano Kasaija, Mary Kabanyoro, Anthony Kisembo, David Nkogi, Benon Akankwasa, Richard Ndora, Joseph Kyarimpa, Joseph Mugyenyi, Ronald Kyarimpa, Federesi Koburunga, Kurineri Ndora, Bazilio Karanagi, Beatrice Tibakanya, Angelica Kisembo, Kurineri Kiiza, Michael Byaruhanga, Joviah Tumwebaze, Fionah Nakamya in Uganda has been 100% funded. The loan will be used for the purpose of buying more goats for resale. Over the months of this loan, Kiva’s Field Partner in Uganda, Pearl Microfinance Limited, will be collecting repayments from
the microfinanceentrepreneurs.

View the loan profile here: http://www.kiva.org/lend/179159?_te=j

I´ve been talking earlier about Kiva.org as a channel between funds, microfinance institutions and entrepreneurs. And finally i´m also a proud lender, one hour ago i started with a small loan of $25 to a group working with animal sales in Uganda! It´s a big group of entrepreneurs that wants to expand their business in selling goats, i wish them luck and hopefully their complete loanrequest is raised soon.

Microfinance typically refers to various kind of small loans, savings, money transfers and other kind of financial services targeted to low-income clients. Now, as the market for microfinancing mature, there are new options also for foreign currency exchange which often been pointed out as a big risk factor.

Mini Foreign currency exchange

Recent studies show that currency risk is one of the biggest challenges for microfinancing. If the loans are taken in USD, which is very common, there is always a risk of foreign currency fluctaions.

But luckily, many forex brokers have recently expanded their services, in order to make it possible even for low income clients to trade forex.

For more info about online forex trading, check out Wikipedia and NFA, the American organisation for forex dealers.

We would like to anounce that you can now connect to us on twitter. Start follow microfund on twitter! Our aim is to get closer to the people out on the field with connections to microfinance and entrepreurs in order to build our network of microcredit.

A lot of people are living under poverty, but with microfinance they have the chance to lift themselves out of poverty. Microfinance provides financial resources like loans, savings, insurances and business training to help people build businesses.

Oktober 17th is the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. The UN secretary-general Ban Ki-Moon is going to perform a speech that day. Wouldn´t it be good if the focus in his speech was on microfinance as the key in poverty ending? Accion international has a campaign in order to collect 5000 signatures. By giving your signature we can all help making big impact to spread the word.

Accion is illustrating poverty fighting strategies, what they are doing now and what are planning to do later in their report for 2007. They write about the problems of the microfinance world and how to solve them.

Download the annulal report here if you are interested in microfinance and microcredit.

On the Accion webpage you can find videos that presents the work in bringing financial services to the poor. The videoclips are from areas in the U.S., Peru, Uganda and Tanzania. You find introduction videos, a how to set up MFI-video, microentrepreneus telling their story and about the partners in the microfinance industry.

Here you find the microfinance videos.

Almost everywhere around the world the stockmarkets have been falling in the last time, due to things like banks loosing money in subprime loans.

But not everything are loosing value nowadays. The microfinance industry is developing and more traditional financial institutions are opening their eyes for microfinance because they starts to see the huge opportunities. Investing in microfinance and helping people start busiensses means profits for both the lender and borrower. It´s a stable and secure investment since the repayment rates of the loans are on a average close to 100%!

Vanatau belongs to the poorest countries of the pacific areas. Many people are out of reach of modern and secure banking services in the rural areas of Vanuatu. Some people that are employed by the government must make long trips to the nearest branch of the National Bank of Vanuatu (NBV) to deposit their salary in the bank. Some farmers are even hiding their money by burying it in the ground rather than going the long way to the bank and collect their money. Only 13% of the people in the rural areas have bank account and access to financial services. It is estimated that about 92,000 people need financial services.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is now supporting the development of banking services that will make it able for the people to use electronic banking and smartcard technology. The new electronic banking system will provide local access to secure and convenient banking services. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) will manage $600,000 in technical assistance, provided by the Japan Special Fund. The National Bank of Vanuatu will support with $150,000 more to complete the funding.

With this new technical support they can provide i wide range of modern banking services which will satisfy the clients financial needs. If it comes out good it can be a model to develop the financial services throughout the Pacific. When everything is up and running the National Bank of Vanuatu can start with microfinance products such as microcredit for example.

Local stores and bank agents will be supplied with the technology and equipment and the clients can open saving accounts with modern facilities, this is how the business model will work.