Videoconferences: Schedule and Overview

Date

Speaker

Topic

16 July 2009

Stuart Rutherford

Introduction to Microfinance

20 August 2009

Speaker 1. Paolo Baltao

Mobile banking: G-CASH

Speaker 2. Eric Duflos

Microfinance and the Global Financial Crisis

24 September 2009

Heather Clark

1. Financial Analysis
2. Consumer protection

29 October 2009

Alfred Hannig

Innovative Policies for Microfinance

This presentation is the first among four videoconference sessions organized under the 6th Microfinance Training of the Trainers (MFTOT) Distance Learning Course. In this session, Stuart Rutherford focused on the theory and practice of "General Purpose Microfinance" which aims at offering money management services to the poor rather than financing businesses. He also highlighted some recent trends and practices that have been proven effective in the field of microfinance such as:

1. more flexible loans that make borrowing easier for general purposes;
2. passbook savings that facilitate better short term money management; and
3. commitment savings which allows the poor to save bigger sums for longer-term or larger-scale needs. Professor Rutherford profiled latest pilot product of Safesave (a financial services co-operative), which also adopts the idea of commitment savings and aims at offering the poor greater liquidity in the form of interest rate-free loans. For more details of Safesave's latest pilot product, you can visit www.thepoorandtheirmoney.com^*

Read more about the first videoconference session^*.

Speaker Profile

Stuart Rutherford is an independent researcher and consultant in financial services for the poor, specializing in south and south-east Asia. He concentrates on field-testing innovative financial services schemes for the very poor in the countryside and in the towns. He also helps local NGOs develop financial services schemes, and provides consultancy services to a wider range of clients.

He is also the founder and Chairman of SafeSave, a financial services co-operative which pioneers ultra-flexible savings and loans services for the urban and rural poor.

He has authored and co-authored a number of publications in microfinance including "The Poor and Their Money and Portfolios of the Poor."

This presentation was the second among the four videoconferencing sessions organized under the 6th offering of the Microfinance Training of the Trainers (MFTOT) Distance Learning Course. There were two parts to this session-the first part was on Mobile Banking: The Case of Globe G-Cash and the second part was on Microfinance and the Global Financial Crisis.

Part 1: Mobile Banking - The Case of Globe G-Cash

With the explosive growth of mobile phone usage around the world particularly among the low income and rural groups, a range of services such as deposit taking, withdrawal, payment transactions, and other conventional banking services, are now being offered through mobile services. Mobile banking offers a technological alternative that could potentially reach the traditionally unbanked population. The first part of this videoconference session profiled the mobile-led development strategy of the Globe G-Cash from the Philippines. Speaker Paolo Baltao discussed a range of issues such as how mobile banking in the Philippines has been helping reduce the transaction costs for microfinance providers and users, and how this approach has been bringing together the banking sector and telecommunications regulators in the country with the goal of expanding and improving access to microfinance services for the poorer population.

Speaker Profile

Paolo Baltao is the Head for Financial and Government Services of G-Xchange, Inc. (GXI), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Globe Telecom, a leading wireless telecommunications provider in the Philippines. Prior to being the Head for Financial and Government Services, Paolo headed the Overseas Filipino Worker (OFW) Money Remittance Segment from 2004 to 2006, leading the acquisition of international and domestic remittance partners for GCash. Before joining GXI, he served as the Category Manager for Corporate Products and Services of Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation. In his 15 years of experience in product management and business development in the various industries such as the pharmaceutical, banking and remittance, and telecommunications industries, the nature of his work has covered conceptualization and development of technology-based products and services. His experience also includes formulating and implementing marketing and selling strategies of these same products.

Part 2: Microfinance and the Global Financial Crisis

Like all other financial institutions, MFIs were not spared from the impact of the global financial crisis. Some of the main areas of concern for microfinance service providers, in light of the crisis, include the availability and cost of funding, stability of deposit-taking MFIs, foreign currency depreciation, and various policy responses that undermine sustainable financial access for the poor. The second part of this videoconference session, focused on the key lessons learned from the crisis, so far, and how they can be used as basis for developing possible responses that could help MFIs address structural weaknesses and strengthen their systems.

Speaker Profile

Eric Duflos is a Senior Microfinance Specialist at the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP). Since he joined CGAP in January 2003 Eric has focused his work on policy issues and aid effectiveness. He managed the Microfinance Donor Peer Reviews, the Country-Level Effectiveness and Accountability Reviews (CLEARs), and now CGAP's work on the broad role of government. Before he joined CGAP, Eric spent seven years in Laos, where he worked with UNCDF/UNDP, the World Bank and the Central Bank to help set up microfinance institutions and a conducive policy and regulatory framework. Eric has also worked for short periods in several countries including Cambodia, Haiti, Indonesia, Mali, Nicaragua, Madagascar, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Vietnam. He holds a master's degree in management from the Lyon EM and a master's in economics and international relations from Johns Hopkins University. Eric regularly teaches policy issues at the Turin/Boulder course and gives a course at Sciences-Po in Paris. He has published several articles on the role of government in microfinance, including on the topic of National Microfinance Strategies. A French national, he speaks French and English, and some German and Lao.

This presentation was the third among the four videoconferencing sessions organized under the 6th offering of the Microfinance Training of the Trainers (MFTOT) Distance Learning Course. The resource speaker, Heather Clark, covered two topics for this session: Part I on Financial Analysis and Part 2 on Consumer Protection and Financial Education.

Part 1: Financial Analysis

The VC presentation on financial analysis dealt with the five financial topics covered in the MFTOT course, namely:

1. Income statements and balance sheets - the basics
2. Delinquency
3. Financial factors that lead to growth & projections
4. Interest rates
5. Adjustments

The presentation focused mainly on how the numbers can be used and are key in analyzing management decisions made within microfinance institutions (MFI).

Part 2: Consumer Protection and Financial Education

The VC presentation on consumer protection and financial education introduces relevant and timely topics of consumer protection in microfinance. The six commonly accepted principles of client protection that were discussed are:

1. Preventing over-indebtedness
2. Transparent pricing
3. Appropriate collections practices
4. Ethical staff behavior
5. Mechanisms for complaints and redress
6. Privacy and security of client data

Why they matter and some practical examples on how they are translated into practice were also discussed. After the presentation, the participants were engaged in a short discussion of the business case scenarios for consumer protection and financial education.

Speaker Profile

Heather Clark is a microfinance consultant and the former Director of UN Capital Development Fund's Special Unit for Microfinance. She developed the Microfinance Distance Learning Course and has taught microfinance at Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs, the American University School of International Service and international workshops on microfinance. She has been the Senior Technical Advisor with USAID's Microenterprise Development Office, and has worked with NGOs, specialized banks and member-owned organizations that provide microfinance services. She is the author of a book on the organizational history of ACLEDA Bank in Cambodia, a commercial bank specialized in microfinance. Ms. Clark serves as a faculty member at the Microfinance Training Program (Boulder and Turin) and resides in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She is editor and author of numerous publications on microfinance. Most important to us, she led the task team and is the author of the MFDL course when she was Director of the Special Unit for Microfinance at UNCDF.

This presentation was the fourth and last videoconference session organized under the 6th Microfinance Training of the Trainers (MFTOT6) Distance Learning Course. This videoconference session was designed to help MFTOT6 participants learn more about the recent policy developments and discussions in microfinance. Resource speaker Alfred Hannig covered the topic on the six innovative policies for promoting financial inclusion, based on a study conducted by the German Technical Cooperation (GTZ). This study basically reiterates the important role played by sound policies in enabling and expanding financial services to reach a wider cross-section of the poor population or the 3 billion people worldwide who are unable to access formal/traditional financial services. The six innovative policies for promoting financial inclusion are: (i) agent banking; (ii) mobile phone banking; (iii) diversification of providers; (iv) reform of public banks; (v) financial identity regulations; and (vi) consumer protection.

Speaker Profile

Alfred Hannig is the Executive Director of the Alliance for Financial Inclusion (AFI). Established in 2008, AFI is an independent network of policymakers in developing countries that provides its members with the tools and resources to share and develop their knowledge of financial inclusion policies that have delivered tangible results.

The knowledge and evidence of successful policies can empower each country in designing the most effective policy solutions for its own situation. As lead designer of this initiative, Alfred Hannig has given priority to financial inclusion in developing countries by facilitating online and face-to-face exchanges, regionally and globally, supported by grants and research. AFI (http://www.afi-global.org/^*) was established by GTZ with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Prior to taking this position in AFI, he was the Director of GTZ's Sustainable Economic Programs in Indonesia, which focus on microfinance and private sector development. Before moving to Indonesia, he was Head of the Financial Development Program in Uganda and GTZ, co-founded by SIDA. Prior to this, he was Head of GTZ's Financial System Development Unit of the Planning and Development Department in Germany. He started his career at the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development. He also represented the Federal Republic of Germany at the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP) for several years. Alfred Hannig wrote his PhD dissertation on financial sector reform in Bolivia and has published several books and papers on development finance, covering microfinance (regulation and supervision)