Microfinance

The international microfinance movement - cheered and arguably hyped for its ability to alleviate poverty through access to microcredit - originated based on a social mission to provide financial services such as small loans to the poor and underserved.  However, the recent explosion of profit-seeking providers (in some instances, non-profit MFIs going public, such as the now-infamous Compartamos IPO, in other cases, a surge in predatory micro-lenders) has been met with a mix of applause, skepticism and in some cases, disgust.  Now, some microfinance leaders are speaking out about the risks industry faces if it loses sight of its social mission, fearing the likelihood of an influx of profit-seeking actors offering credit products that are actually more welfare-harming than welfare-enhancing.  My question is: Has anyone else noticed some eerie similarities between these debates over profits from microcredit and the debates within the US over payday lenders?

I consider my cell phone an asset. With all those hi-tech capabilities packed into a little handset, it keeps me simultaneously connected, productive, on-time, en route, entertained and informed. And I'm not alone - more than 3 billion people around the world (almost half of the global population) have a cell phone. But what if this gadget that seems capable of reaching almost anybody and doing almost anything could also provide a mechanism for savings and asset building for individuals around the world? Despite seemingly limitless potential and enthusiasm for such an innovation, it will unfortunately be some time before this is a reality.

You know a concept has hit the big time when it gets applied to the global music industry.

Now, microfinance - the technique that has been reducing poverty amongst women from Bangladesh to Bolivia - is available to struggling musicians around the world.

Through the power of social networking and a recent surge in the popularity of peer-to-peer lending, Calabash Music, a popular music download site internationally and the world's first "fair trade music" site, has launched a new initiative "Tune Your World" in which fans can "microfinance" the start up costs and recording activities of their favorite new and emerging artists' around the world.

While doing research on the "democratization of credit" in the United States during the 20th century, I recently came across the following passage in the book, Financing the American Dream: A Cultural History of Consumer Credit by Lendol Calder. The passage describes a marketing strategy of "personal finance" companies - firms established in the early 1900s to offer consumers small loans. Before this, besides getting a loan from family or friends, or receiving credit from retailers on a case-by-case basis, ordinary folks had difficulty securing loans. Calder writes,

The most common feature of their business propaganda was the ‘success story.' These stories were designed to emphasize one critical point: the productive nature of small loans. Beginning with descriptions of the misery of unfortunate borrowers, the lenders' success stories narrated how legal cash lenders helped borrowers escape the industrial conditions that lay at the root of their economic misfortune. Very often the stories ended with the borrower an independent businessman or businesswoman.

It's all we hear about these days: The U.S. subprime mortgage bubble -- created by poor and at times predatory lending practices and lax banking regulation and creative investment products -- has burst. Of the approximately 7.7 million subprime loans outstanding, over 2 million are at risk of foreclosure and 600,000 borrowers are expected to lose their homes this year. The majority of us are left in shock as we watch the devastation unfold, the bubbles aftermath wreaking havoc on the U.S. (and increasingly global) economy, ensuing fears of recession and economic pain to come, and leaving politicians, economists, and regulators all scrambling to pick up the pieces.
However, in the meantime, the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner on Tuesday proudly hailed microfinance -- the innovation of providing small loans to poor, traditionally financial excluded individuals, mainly women -- as "sub sub sub subprime" lending. That means that globally, more than 3300 microfinance institutions provide such "super-subprime" loans to over 100 million clients and growing. Just to be clear: I'm a huge fan of microfinance. However, I'm left perplexed by this dichotomy: How can a lending practice that is almost singlehandedly dragging the whole of the U.S. economy in to a hole simultaneously and sustainably end third world poverty?