Aspire -Microloans for Business: Operational and Funding Lessons for the Future of Microfinance in the UK

This report provides an overview of community development finance institutions (CDFIs), and the sector in general.It shares the achievements, challenges and lessons learned during first five years of Aspire Microloans for Business, a pioneer of community development finance in UK. It tries to:

• Capture Aspire's experiences and challenges as a stand-alone microfinance organization;
• Synthesize the lessons learnt, that are of relevance to the community development finance sector as a whole.

The study presents a comparative analysis of Aspire's performance with other microenterprise lenders in the US and Europe. It further:

• Compares the performance of Aspire with its original business plan.
• Describes some of the key features of Aspire's business model, including;
  • The target market;
  • Loan products;
  • Lending methods;
  • Reporting and analysis.
• Looks at the key institutional areas of Aspire;
• Provides a brief performance analysis;
• Highlights areas of best practice;
• Uses a number of indicators to assess performance, and compare performance with other microenterprise lenders.

The report finally concludes that:

• Aspire was successful in reaching its target market, and disbursed over 2.4 million euros in loans to over 400 clients;
• Several of the original predictions, particularly in relation to market size, marketing methods, loan products and staff costs were not realistic.