SSRN-Women and Repayment in Microfinance by Roy Mersland, Bert D'Espallier, Isabelle Guérin:
"This paper analyzes gender-differences with respect to microfinance repayment-rates using a large global dataset covering 350 Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) in 70 countries. The results indicate that more women clients is associated with lower portfolio-at-risk, lower write-offs, and lower credit-loss provisions, ceteris paribus. These findings confirm common believes that women in general are a better credit-risk for MFIs. Interaction effects reveal that the effect is stronger for NGOs, individual-based lenders, ‘finance plus’-providers and regulated MFIs. This indicates that two types of MFIs benefit more than others from focussing on women: First, those MFIs that develop hands-on, women-friendly procedures tailored to individual women’s need, and Second, those MFIs that apply coercive enforcement methods to which women are more responsive
I was speaking to a friend over Christmas break about this. It seems
KIVA has gone away from lending predominantly to females. It will be interesting to see if repayment rates drop for them."
No comments:
Post a Comment