Paper
Inspiring a New Generation: FINCA's Research Fellows Program and Insights from the First Four Years
Defining and measuring social performance of MFIs
This FINCA document contains student monographs on social performance, based on field research conducted since 2005.
27 researchers from 14 universities used the upgraded version of the FINCA Client Assessment Tool (FCAT) to study ten FINCA affiliates and three replicator MFIs. Findings reveal that:
- In general, village banking increases participants social wellbeing more than their economic wealth;
- Participation in village banking over a longer period of time is not associated with a consistent improvement in clients well-being;
- Identifying characteristics of clients who exit will allow MFIs to take necessary measures to retain their best clients and reduce costs;
- Exit rates may be decreased by ensuring that new clients enter village banking groups with other new clients receiving similar loan amounts;
- Loans to housing related businesses can provide economic benefits to members of the community beyond those who actually receive the loan;
- Remittances continue to command attention in the field of international development, but their impact remains unclear.
The monographs also highlighted the need for more large scale randomized control trial research to give the microfinance industry the robust empirical data it requires.
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