The struggle to be responsible – what leads good providers down the road to bad practices?
by Kate McKee: Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Traveling the Africa and Asia conference circuit over the past month, it’s striking how the issues of responsible finance and client protection are suddenly prominent wherever microfinance providers and financial inclusion policy makers, funders and observers gather. From Africa , where the first Africa-wide conference on consumer protection drew over 200 participants, to the annual Indian Microfinance Summit “Doing Good and Doing Well” a surprising consensus has emerged around the need for action on multiple fronts, encompassing a range of responses from consumer education and financial capability, to regulation.
So I’ve been putting microfinance leaders – including the heads of BASIX, SKS, Arohan, Bandhan (all in India), Advans-Ghana, and Blue Financial Services (a South-Africa-based company with growing operations across Africa) – on the spot, asking them to talk about the pressures that make providers cut corners and adopt less than fully-admirable practices.
