Microfinance Consensus Guidelines 2006

Good practice guidelines for funders of microfinance

Microfinance consensus guidelines. Consultative Group to Assist the Poor/The World Bank, 2006.

Poor people need a variety of financial services, not just loans. In addition to credit, they want savings, insurance, and money transfer services. Microfinance is a powerful tool to fight poverty. Poor households use financial services to raise income, build their assets, and cushion themselves against external shocks.

Microfinance means building financial systems that serve the poor. Microfinance will reach its full potential only if it is integrated into a country’s mainstream financial system. Microfinance can pay for itself, and must do so if it is to reach very large numbers of poor people. Unless microfinance providers charge enough to cover their costs, they will always be limited by the scarce and uncertain supply of subsidies from donors and governments. 

Microfinance is about building permanent local financial institutions that can attract domestic deposits, recycle them into loans, and provide other financial services. Microcredit is not always the answer. Other kinds of support may work better for people who are so destitute that they are without income or means of repayment. Interest rate ceilings hurt poor people by making it harder for them to get credit. Making many small loans costs more than making a few large ones. Interest rate ceilings prevent microfinance institutions from covering their costs, and thereby choke off the supply of credit for poor people. 

The job of government is to enable financial services, not to provide them directly. Governments can almost never do a good job of lending, but they can set a supporting policy environment. Donor funds should complement private capital, not compete with it. Donors should use appropriate grant, loan, and equity instruments on a temporary basis to build the institutional capacity of financial providers, develop support infrastructure, and support experimental services and products. The key bottleneck is the shortage of strong institutions and managers. Donors should focus their support on building capacity. 

Microfinance works best when it measures—and discloses—its performance. Reporting not only helps stakeholders judge costs and benefits, but it also improves performance. MFIs need to produce accurate and comparable reporting on financial performance (e.g., loan repayment and cost recovery) as wellas social performance (e.g., number and poverty level of clients being served).