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Village Bank
Village banking is a microcredit methodology whereby financial services are administered locally rather than centralized in a formal bank. Village banking has its roots in ancient cultures and was most recently adopted for use by micro-finance institutions (MFIs) as a way to control costs. Early MFI village banking methods were innovated by Grameen Bank and then later developed by groups such as FINCA International founder John Hatch. Among US-based non-profit agencies there are at least 31 microfinance institutions (MFIs) that have collectively created over 800 village banking programs in at least 90 countries. And in many of these countries there are host-country MFIs—sometimes dozens—that are village banking practitioners as well. Methodology A village bank is an informal self-help support group of 20-30 members, predominantly female heads-of-household. If the program is “on mission”, in a normal village bank about 50% of all new members entering the program will be sever ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Microcredit
:''This article is specific to small loans, often provided in a pooled manner. For direct payments to individuals for specific projects, see Micropatronage. For financial services to the poor, see Microfinance. For small payments, see Micropayment.'' Microcredit is the extension of very small loans (microloans) to impoverished borrowers who typically lack collateral, steady employment, or a verifiable credit history. It is designed to support entrepreneurship and alleviate poverty. Many recipients are illiterate, and therefore unable to complete paperwork required to get conventional loans. As of 2009 an estimated 74 million people held microloans that totaled US$38 billion. Grameen Bank reports that repayment success rates are between 95 and 98 percent. Microcredit is part of microfinance, which provides a wider range of financial services, especially savings accounts, to the poor. Modern microcredit is generally considered to have originated with the Grameen Bank founded in Ba ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
CVECA
A CVECA is a ''self-reliant village savings and credit bank'' (from the French Caisse Villageoise d'Epargne et de Crédit Autogérée). CVECAs are designed to operate in rural areas with clients who are primarily subsistence farmers, with minimal non-farm income. While most banks have less than 250 members, they achieve service flexibility and economies of scale through networking together into regional federations. "Each bank is managed by 2 part-time local staff and a board composed of members, all of whom have minimal education." CVECAs are member-based microfinance intermediaries inspired by external technical support. Structurally they lie between informal financial market actors like moneylenders, collectors, and ROSCAs on the one hand, and formal actors like microfinance institutions and banks on the other. Other organizations in this transitional zone in financial market development include self-help groups, ASCAs, rural credit co-operatives, village banks and financ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Banking
A bank is a financial institution that accepts deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital markets. Because banks play an important role in financial stability and the economy of a country, most jurisdictions exercise a high degree of regulation over banks. Most countries have institutionalized a system known as fractional reserve banking, under which banks hold liquid assets equal to only a portion of their current liabilities. In addition to other regulations intended to ensure liquidity, banks are generally subject to minimum capital requirements based on an international set of capital standards, the Basel Accords. Banking in its modern sense evolved in the fourteenth century in the prosperous cities of Renaissance Italy but in many ways functioned as a continuation of ideas and concepts of credit and lending that had their roots in the a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Microfinance
Microfinance is a category of financial services targeting individuals and small businesses who lack access to conventional banking and related services. Microfinance includes microcredit, the provision of small loans to poor clients; savings and checking accounts; microinsurance; and payment systems, among other services. Microfinance services are designed to reach excluded customers, usually poorer population segments, possibly socially marginalized, or geographically more isolated, and to help them become self-sufficient.Christen, Robert Peck Christen; Rosenberg, Richard; Jayadeva, Veena. ''Financial institutions with a double-bottom line: Implications for the future of microfinance''. CGAP, Occasional Papers series, July 2004, pp. 2–3. ID Ghana is an example of a microfinance institution. Microfinance initially had a limited definition: the provision of microloans to poor entrepreneurs and small businesses lacking access to credit. The two main mechanisms for the delive ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Self-help Group (finance)
A self-help group (commonly abbreviated SHG) is a financial intermediary committee usually composed of 12 to 25 local women between the ages of 18 and 50. Most self-help groups are in India, though they can be found in other countries, especially in South Asia and Southeast Asia. A SHG is generally a group of people who work on daily wages who form a loose grouping or union. Money is collected from those who are able to donate and given to members in need. Members may also make small regular savings contributions over a few months until there is enough money in the group to begin lending. Funds may then be lent back to the members or to others in the village for any purpose. In India, many SHGs are linked with banks for the delivery of micro-credit. Structure A SHG is a community-based group with 10-25 members. Members are usually women from similar social and economic backgrounds, all voluntarily coming together to save small sums of money, on a regular basis. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Microcredit Summit Campaign
The Microcredit Summit Campaign, an American non-profit organization, started as an effort to bring together microcredit practitioners, advocates, educational institutions, donor agencies, international financial institutions, non-governmental organizations and others involved with microcredit around the goal of alleviating world poverty through microfinance. History The first Microcredit Summit was held February 2–4, 1997 in Washington, DC. The first summit had approximately 3,000 in attendance from 137 countries. Hillary Clinton gave the keynote speech at the first Summit. The outcome of the first Summit was the launch of a "campaign" to reach 100 million of the world's poorest families, especially the women of those families, with credit for self-employment and other financial and business services by the year 2005. In January 2009, to coincide with the release of the State of the Microcredit Summit Campaign Report 2009 (SOCR), the Microcredit Summit Campaign announced ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
ROSCA
Rosca (ring or bagel) is a Spanish and Portuguese bread dish eaten in Spain, Mexico, South America, and other areas. It is made with flour, salt, sugar, butter, yeast, water, and seasonings. It is also called ka'ake and referred to as a "Syrian-style cracker ring". Roscas de reyes variation Roscas de reyes (ring of kings or three King's bread) is eaten on "El Dia de Los Reyes" ("The Day of the Kings"), which is part of the celebration of the Three Kings who visited the baby Jesus to give him gifts (traditionally gold, myrrh, and incense). The cake itself is an oversized version of kingcake colored with candy fruit. Raisins, milk, anise, cinnamon, vanilla, and colorful candy fruit are used depending on the recipe.Virginia Nylander Ebinger Aguinaldos: Christmas customs, music, and foods of the Spanish-speaking countries of the AmericasSunstone Press, 2008 , page 234. At least one plastic miniature figurine of the baby Jesus can be hidden inside the cake. The person who finds it ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flat Rate (finance)
Flat interest rate mortgages and loans calculate interest based on the amount of money a borrower receives at the beginning of a loan. However, if repayment is scheduled to occur at regular intervals throughout the term, the average amount to which the borrower has access is lower and so the effective or true rate of interest is higher. Only if the principal is available in full throughout the loan term does the flat rate equate to the true rate. This is the case in the example to the right, where the loan contract is for 400,000 Cambodian riels over 4 months. Interest is set at 16,000 riels (4%) a month while principal is due in a single payment ''at the end''. Flat rate calculations Loans with interest quoted using a flat rate originated before currency was invented and continued to feature regularly up to and beyond the 20th century within developed countries. More recently, they have also come to be used in the informal economy of developing countries, frequently adopt ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
FINCA Afghanistan
FINCA Afghanistan is a nonprofit microfinance organization and an affiliate of FINCA International. Its headquarters is in Kabul, Afghanistan. Background and history FINCA Afghanistan was founded on August 1, 2003 through grants and loans supplied by several donors and funding agencies. Her Majesty Queen Rania of Jordan announced the launching of the program in 2002. FINCA Afghanistan began lending operations in the city of Herat on February 24, 2004. By the end of its first year in operation, the organization had reached over 4,500 clients, an outstanding loan portfolio of almost $700,000, and a repayment rate of 100%. FINCA expanded its operations to Kabul and Nangarhar in 2005, followed by Balkh, Laghman, Kunar and Parwan in 2006, and Kunduz in 2007. In each of these provinces, FINCA established branch and market offices in the provincial capital, as well as outlying cities and districts. FINCA Afghanistan's Islamic banking products Since its inception, FINCA Afghanistan h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Muhammad Yunus
Muhammad Yunus (born 28 June 1940) is a Bangladeshi social entrepreneur, banker, economist and civil society leader who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for founding the Grameen Bank and pioneering the concepts of microcredit and microfinance. These loans are given to entrepreneurs too poor to qualify for traditional bank loans. Yunus and the Grameen Bank were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize "for their efforts through microcredit to create economic and social development from below". The Norwegian Nobel Committee said that "lasting peace cannot be achieved unless large population groups find ways in which to break out of poverty" and that "across cultures and civilizations, Yunus and Grameen Bank have shown that even the poorest of the poor can work to bring about their own development". Yunus has received several other national and international honours. He received the United States Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009 and the Congressional Gold Medal in 2010. In 2008 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grameen Bank
Grameen Bank ( bn, গ্রামীণ ব্যাংক) is a microfinance organisation and community development bank founded in Bangladesh. It makes small loans (known as microcredit or "grameencredit") to the impoverished without requiring collateral. Grameen Bank originated in 1976, in the work of Professor Muhammad Yunus at University of Chittagong, who launched a research project to study how to design a credit delivery system to provide banking services to the rural poor. In October 1983 the Grameen Bank was authorised by national legislation to operate as an independent bank. The bank grew significantly between 2003 and 2007. As of January 2011, the total borrowers of the bank number 8.4 million, and 97% of those are women. In 1998 the Bank's "Low-cost Housing Program" won a World Habitat Award. In 2006, the bank and its founder, Muhammad Yunus, were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. History Muhammad Yunus was inspired during the Bangladesh famine o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Capital (finance)
Financial capital (also simply known as capital or equity in finance, accounting and economics) is any economic resource measured in terms of money used by entrepreneurs and businesses to buy what they need to make their products or to provide their services to the sector of the economy upon which their operation is based, ''e.g.'', retail, corporate, investment banking, etc. In other words, financial capital is internal retained earnings generated by the entity or funds provided by lenders (and investors) to businesses in order to purchase real capital equipment or services for producing new goods and/or services. In contrast, real capital (or economic capital) comprises physical goods that assist in the production of other goods and services, e.g. shovels for gravediggers, sewing machines for tailors, or machinery and tooling for factories. IFRS concepts of capital maintenance ''Financial capital'' generally refers to saved-up financial wealth, especially that used in order ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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