In this video Jonathan Morduch, co-author of “Portfolios of the Poor” and Professor of Public Policy and Economics at the NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, and Managing Director of the Financial Access Initiative shares his opinion on what the book tells us about reimagining microfinance. He notes the importance of financial diary in capturing quality data in Bangladesh, India and South Africa. Jonathan notes that the book reveals what was otherwise ignored by economists. Highlighting the benefits of financial diaries, he says that it propagates simple methods like focused and open-ended way of looking at problem and act as specific guide for action.
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Portfolios of the Poor: Expert Review 3
“In this video Jonathan Morduch, co-author of “Portfolios of the Poor” and Professor of Public Policy and Economics at the NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, and Managing Director of the Financial Access Initiative tells one of the most important information revealed by the book is the they way how people use loans. The book reveals poor people use loans not only to expand business but also for fulfilling general purposes such as education, health, food etc. Jonathan says this revelation would lead to newer generation of financial services or products that would address these problems in an effective way.
Portfolios of the Poor: Grameen-2 – A Success Story
In this video series-4 answering Graham A.N. Wright of MicroSave, Stuart Rutherford, talks about SafeSave, Buro and particularly Grameen 2 in Bangladesh who have developed financial products that addresses the three main problems the poor face to manage money: managing money on daily basis, money for handling emergency and building large sums of money for future.
Portfolios of the Poor: Financial Products
In this video series-3, Stuart Rutherford, co-author of “Portfolios of the Poor” talks about the financial products that poor people need from MFIs. He also describes the behaviour of people in managing daily expenses when income is irregular and their vulnerability to emergencies.
Portfolios of the Poor: Key Lessons
In this video series-2, taking the conversation further with Graham A.N. Wright, Stuart Rutherford, co-author of “Portfolios of the Poor”, shares the key lessons of the book in terms of poor people’s financial behaviour. Informing that poor people lead complex financial lives basically not only due to meager but irregular income. Sharing his research work in Bangladesh, India and South Africa, he opines that poor people can certainly save and he talks about various saving mechanism poor employ such as clay piggy bank, under the mattress etc. He further talks about group savings and pool savings as well.
Savings Mobilisation in SHGs: Opportunities and Challenges
This focus note explains the reasons why the poor save in SHGs. As per the study conducted by GTZ in 1997; the important factors which the poor keep in mind before accessing savings facility of an institution are:
security,
convenience,
liquidity and
positive returns
The note further explores how financial institutions like banks and MFIs lend to SHGs based on their internal savings. The groups usually intend to access external funds, which are available at rates lower than market. But for reasons states above the organisations faces the challenge of ‘savings’ being just used to fulfil the minimum eligibility criteria to access loans from external sources. However, these challenges can be overcome through strategies like:
Offering customised and voluntary savings products to the SHG members, formation of a professionally run external fund from where SHGs can draw when cash flow needs are higher than usual etc.