SKS head Vikram Akula, in a rice field his firm helped to fund.
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As a growing number of microfinance firms go public, qualms about putting the financial interests of shareholders above the needs of clients have mounted. Already the flood of new money has come under criticism from longtime microfinance advocates for focusing too much on the largest firms operating in the most profitable countries. According to CGAP, 75% of cross-border funds go to Latin America and Eastern Europe, the world's most developed microfinance markets--the low-hanging fruit. That could leave out the poorest of the world's poor, who are predominantly in Asia and Africa. Says Alex Counts, CEO of the nonprofit Grameen Foundation, which helps develop microfinance institutions: "You might need to invent the microfinance industry all over again."
Segmenting the industry, though, might not be so bad if it allows more of the poor to get access to credit. Let multinational corporations take the top microfinance institutions to the next level, and leave the bottom of the pyramid to development groups and regional banks. That's what Ecobank is doing in Africa. The Togo-based company, with operations in 22 countries, has for years acted as a banker to microfinance groups, taking deposits and writing loans. Over that time, Ecobank has grown hip to the business model and last year launched a microfinance institution of its own, in Nigeria and then in Ghana. Senegal and Cameroon are next. "This empowers the bottom of the African market," says Ecobank microfinance head Rotimi Nihinlola, "and is a good opportunity to grow our business."
Entrepreneurs or Consumers?
Yet making loans to poor people, while an important tool, is hardly a poverty cure-all. Property rights, the rule of law--these things matter too. "You cannot overidealize what microfinance alone can do," says Clara Akerman, president of the microfinance group WWB Colombia. Most outfits started with lending simply because local laws prohibited nonbanks from offering deposit accounts. When people do have the option to save instead of borrow, saving is often what they prefer.
With marketing savvy introduced into the equation, poverty-alleviation experts are concerned that people will be talked into loans they wouldn't otherwise want. "Most genuinely poor people are not happy with carrying debt," says international-development expert Thomas Dichter. "The danger of all this new money is that microcredit institutions will feel compelled to go out and generate more borrowers."
But the new money is also expanding the scope of microfinance beyond small loanmaking. As institutions compete for customers, they are rolling out other services. In Mexico, Citigroup has written more than 1 million life-insurance policies in conjunction with Compartamos, and in India it offers customers savings accounts and ATM access in partnership with microfinancier BASIX. "Not everyone will be an entrepreneur, but most of us have to save for something," says Bob Annibale, head of Citigroup's microfinance unit. Microfinanciers around the world are racing to offer the first real micromortgages. "That we are now talking about creating financial systems that include the majority of people in developing countries is a real departure from what has existed for centuries," says María Otero, CEO of microlender ACCION International.
Part of those financial systems, though, are consumer loans, and that is a sticking point for microfinance purists. There is nothing inherently wrong with buying TVs and microwaves on credit, but as lending to poor people has gone mainstream, certain markets, like Mexico, have been flooded with loans that have nothing to do with providing capital to aspiring entrepreneurs--just racking up household debt. That's especially worrisome, since most developing countries don't have strong consumer-protection laws. "Everyone has realized you can make money," says Damian von Stauffenberg, principal of MicroRate, which evaluates microfinance firms. "Before, no one who wanted to get rich quick was going into microfinance. Suddenly you have loan-sharking operations assuming the microfinance mantle."
Back in Peru, Mibanco now offers consumer loans. It pretty much has to. "Our main business is for microcompanies, but people also want to buy a TV or a refrigerator, and we need to have the capacity to give a loan," says Llosa. "If we don't, they will go to another institution."
That is just one small slice of how Mibanco is changing in the face of competition. In 2004 Mibanco had 30 branches; today it has 81, as the firm pushes into remote areas--the coasts, the mountains--trying to hold off commercial banks. Mibanco has started offering savings accounts and has gone to the likes of North Carolina--based Wachovia to finance growth, which helps Mibanco reach more than 5,000 new clients a month. All of that ostensibly benefits borrowers.
But there are other changes to Mibanco's operations that aren't quite so easy to categorize. To grow quickly and preserve market share, Mibanco is offering incentives to current customers to get friends to sign up. That's hardly insidious--as anyone with a gym membership can tell you--but it does flick at the concern that lenders might start driving demand. And now Mibanco is contemplating an ipo. "We have two objectives," says Llosa. "One of them is to have a social impact, but we also look to be profitable. If we decide to only have a social impact, we won't have resources to grow."
Recent history says that when a financial trend gets popular, it gets riskier too. Think subprime mortgages. That may or may not be the case with big banks and microfinance. What is clear is that this pair won't be parting ways anytime soon.