Why join us? - the opportunities

Microfinance provides financial services for those not served by mainstream banks, usually because they are too poor and too remote. Microfinancenovercomes the barriers to entry faced by mainstream banks – and average repayment rates of 97% indicate that this is not the subprime market!

One of the strengths of microfinance is that it is market-based; a model of trade not aid. Poor people borrow money to invest in their businesses, and they pay it back in full with interest. This means that they do not become dependent on charity. The interest they pay covers the overheads of the microfinance institution, and the repaid capital can be lent to other clients over and over again. Your original donation is thus recycled many times. Further, microfinance clients begin with very small loans but can take increasingly bigger loans as their businesses begin to thrive. The most successful eventually reach the Small to Medium Enterprise stage where they begin employing others, contributing to state tax coffers and playing a part in the long-term social and economic growth of their country.

Savings and insurance are a vital part of microfinance too. With no National Health Service, a poor person becoming sick needs savings to pay for hospital treatment. With little state welfare provision, a small business destroyed by fire, drought or flood often means that the household's children cannot go to school or even have enough to eat. The value of savings and insurance to help people reduce their vulberability to shocks like these in huge.