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Akhilesh Singh
Akhilesh Kumar Singh is Chief Financial Officer at Sonata Finance Pvt. Ltd. He is a financial sector consultant with over 15 years of experience advising banks and MFIs in India, Sri Lanka, Nepal and the Philippines.
Posts by Akhilesh Singh
Fate of MFIs post the COVID-19 lockdown – will they prove resilient again?
Read MSC’s take on the impact of the COVID-19 lockdowns on MFIs. Join our journey as we examine the surprising resilience of Indian MFIs. The blog compares past challenges like demonetization and traces how MFIs bounced back each time. The lockdown enforced to control the spread of coronavirus in 2020 has been the most severe crisis to hit the sector. Hopefully, MFIs will once again emerge resiliently.
May 26, 2020
Food security: How are agriculture and the corner shops faring amid India’s lockdown?
What is the impact of COVID-19 on agriculture and microenterprises? As transport and flow of cash and goods remain restricted, how will farmers and owners of small shops cope with the crisis? These are some questions we explore in detail as we devise suggestions for policymakers and players in the ecosystem.
Apr 15, 2020
Is There a Magic Stick to Manage Delinquencies?
Delinquency is a systemic issue in microfinance institutions, once it is detected a through system review is needed. There are few quick measures which can give immediate relief, if problem is detected at an early stage. However, system overhaul is essential to find long term solution. This video talks about general perception of MFIs regarding […]
Nov 2, 2018
Small Finance Bank Licences: Not the End of the Road for Non-SFB MFIs
MFIs that are not small finance banks can also find ways to increase their market share.This note discusses all these aspects in detail.
Nov 27, 2015
Transformation of Microfinance Institutions to Small Finance Banks: Differentiating Men from the Boys!
This note is second in the series and examines how small finance banks can build a first-class retail institution that focusses on low-income clients.
Sep 17, 2015
Akhilesh Singh, Lokesh Singh, Abhishek Anand, Nishant Kumar and Nitin Malik
Sep 17, 2015
Akhilesh Singh, Lokesh Singh, Abhishek Anand, Nishant Kumar and Nitin Malik
Transformation of Microfinance Institutions into Small Finance Banks: Will it be a Roller Coaster?
In this note, we discuss various challenges that MFIs may face while transforming into small finance banks. The second note in this series would examine plausible solutions.
Sep 15, 2015
Can You Really Use Mobile Money for Microfinance? Lessons from a Pilot
In this Note we examine the evolution and mechanics of MNO-MFI partnership and how this partnerships could be made mutually more rewarding in the context of mobile money deployments.
Feb 3, 2015
Alternative financial education approach to design effective financial education/capability programmes
MicroSave implemented an Alternative Financial Education programme (AFE) at one of the biggest MFIs in north India. The tool based was based on the principle of product-led financial education, the programme delivery was embedded in the existing operational structure of the MFI, and the tools were designed using SWITCH behavior change framework.
Jan 16, 2015
Akhand Tiwari, Akhilesh Singh, Nishant Kumar and Nitish Narain