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Micro-finance Adopts Guidelines

Micro-financing lenders are set to adopt guidelines. This is after Compartamos, a Mexican microfinancing bank went public in 2007 and sold its shares for $468. Instead of giving the money to the poor or other people who would usually benefit from such an institution, they decided to give the money to their share holders. Many were very upset about this. Compartamos’ defense was that this was to show investors that micro-lending could be profitable and in turn an attractive investment. “There was a lot of concern, and there still is, that it’s very difficult to differentiate finance from micro-finance because, look, everyone is coming in,” said Lynne Patterson, the founder of Pro-Mujer, a network of Latin American micro-lenders that signed the code.
Do you think it was reasonable for Compartamos to give its profits to shareholders?
To read more community-related news, please visit http://www.causecast.com/community
For more on micro-finance see: http://causecast.org/org/kiva
For the full story see: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/26/business/worldbusiness/26micro.html?scp=6&sq=nonprofit&st=cse

Photo: frankh/Flickr
Ben

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