What’s Next: Another Repayment Crisis?

Financial Access Initiative, 14 February 2013

It’s been over two years since the start of the great India insolvency.  Four years since the Bosnia blight and No Pago Nicaragua.  And nearly six years since the Morocco microfinance meltdown.

At this point, it’s reasonable to say that the first global crisis in microfinance has passed.  Life is on the mend.

In a recent email, Alok Prasad, head of the Microfinance Institutions Network in India (MFIN) described its most recent quarterly report as “green shoots in evidence.”  The numbers certainly bear him out. Elsewhere, investors speak of tightening their exposure to countries with overheating markets, pay attention to issues of overindebtedness, and are wary of the sort of runaway growth that was being posted by Indian MFIs back in 2008-10. more →