November was an important month for SAMN as it featured the first gathering of all SAMN partners and witnessed many project related main activities such as the launch of SAMN, the participation of all our partners to an investment fair, cross visits and trainings.

The south Asia Microfinance Network (SAMN) is an initiative by ACTED and its partners ACESS (in India) and RSPN (in Pakistan) to promote economic development in South Asia by establishing a network for coordination and cooperation between European financial sector and the microfinance sector in South Asia, i.e. in Afghanistan, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. SAMN is among the first initiatives of this kind, providing a regional platform for Microfinance institutions (MFIs) and European investors to forge business linkages.

SAMN launch

The major event of this month has been the launch of SAMN, organized on November 10th 2008 in Delhi (India). During the launch event, ACTED presented the objective of SAMN, its framework and its future plans for the coming years. One of the major challenges of Microfinance (MF) sector in the South Asia region is inadequate and insufficient funding to the sector in order to meet the demand for financial services in the region. While the region is the largest MF market in the world, commercial foreign investment is very low and is mostly concentrated in a few top tier MFIs. SAMN has been promoted to counter this challenge of the MF sector among others by furthering investment in tier-2 MFIs in Afghanistan, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. This will be done by enhancing the capacity of member MFIs to attract investment, by supporting potential investors in linking them effectively to MFI members of SAMN and by enhancing SAMN’s effectiveness by increasing its outreach and depth.

The event was also accompanied by a panel discussion on ‘Prospects for Investment in South Asian MF’ with distinguished speakers from Standard Chartered Bank, Bellwether Microfinance Fund, SKS and EDA Rural Systems. During the discussion, panellists highlighted the crucial role of capacity building for MFIs in the region, prospects and issues of Equity Investments in MFIs, the variety of landscapes in the various countries of the region and the impact of the global financial crisis on the MF sector, stating that the sector will indeed undergo some changes such as increasing interest of social investors, rising costs of funding for MFIs and a drop in the growth rates of MFIs.

The launch was attended by all Financing Development project partners, members MFIs and representatives from Yes Bank, Symbiotics, Sa-dhan, Intellecap, Grameen Capital and MIX among others. It provided an excellent opportunity to all SAMN members to meet and exchange ideas and opinions, opening the way to further collaboration between all the partners.

During the event, SAMN released the first version of a booklet containing country investment guidelines as well as pitchbooks from all of SAMN member MFIs. This booklet is available on SAMN website (www.samn.eu). The final and comprehensive version will be released at the Investment Fair in Paris to be organized by SAMN in April 2009.

Asia Invest Fair

Another exciting event for our partners that took place in November was the Investment Fair, held in parallel to the Microfinance India Summit and co-sponsored by SAMN. Some of our partner MFIs could develop promising discussions with some of the 15 international investors that were present (Oiko Credit, Microvest, Symbiotics Norwegian Microfinance Initiative, EDA Capital Connect and CitiGroup among others). This was also an opportunity for SAMN to extend its visibility and for ACTED to promote all its microfinance activities (OXUS Group, Babyloan and Octopus).

Cross visits

SAMN also seized the chance of the Microfinance India Summit to organize the first cross visits of the project. For this occasion, 11 representatives from Afghanistan, 5 representatives from Pakistan and 4 representatives from Sri Lanka travelled each to one of our six partner MFI in India, 3 of them located in Orissa, 2 in West Bengal and one in Uttar Pradesh . The two day visit featured a presentation of the host MFI activities and systems, a presentation of each participating MFI, a branch office visit and wrap up discussions on current obstacles and lessons learnt.

This was a chance for each participant not only to see practical examples of other microfinance projects and operations but also to exchange opinions and discuss on best practices. Such interactions are considered vital for SAMN, not only to enhance capacity building of beneficiary MFIs, to promote the replication of innovative services and to strengthen SAMN but also to bring cohesiveness among all our partners. At the end of the cross visit, SAMN also provided its MFI partners with a general training on investment readiness.

Perspectives

Regarding future perspective for the project, SAMN is now entering an exciting phase as customised capacity building to attract investment for each of our partner MFIs will start December 1st. We are also already planning the second cross visits to be held in February 2009 in Pakistan and Sri Lanka where another general training on International Accounting Standards and capital adequacy will also be given by Standard Chartered.

We would also like to take this opportunity to warmly thank our partners, ACCESS and RSPN, and our associates: Microfinance Investment Support Facility in Afghanistan (MISFA), Oxus Development Network, Standard Chartered Bank and Tiaré Groupe for their involvement and support to SAMN.

For more information on SAMN, please visit www.samn.eu

SAMN is formed under a project of ACTED funded by the European Union’s Asia Invest budget line. Asia-Invest is an initiative by the European Commission to promote and support the co-operation between EU and Asian companies by facilitating mutually beneficial partnerships between companies in order to increase trade and investment flow between EU and Asia and to improve the business environment.

Category: News on January 5th, 2009