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	<title>MFTransparency.org: Blog</title>
	<link>http://www.mftransparency.org/pages</link>
	<description>Promoting Transparent Pricing  in the Microfinance Industry</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Fri, 19 Mar 2010 12:26:01 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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            <title>Transparency at the consumer level</title>
            <description><![CDATA[ by Jessica Haeussler
I visited AlSol, a Mexican NGO MFI serving women in mainly rural and indigenous communities in the State of Chiapas, several months ago. Together with one of AlSol’s loan officers and two tsotsil-speaking trainers I visited a solidarity group of women entrepreneurs in the community of Zinacantán, near San Cristóbal de las [...]]]></description>
            <link>http://www.mftransparency.org/pages/2010/03/15/inventory-transparency-at-the-consumer-level/</link>
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            <title>Transparency, India, Gandhi, and the seven deadly social sins</title>
            <description><![CDATA[by Chuck Waterfield
A few weeks ago I made an unplanned and very interesting trip to India. MFTransparency had no plans of working in India this year, but a broad group of stakeholders in the India microfinance industry had been discussing the need for pricing transparency and then invited us to come and meet with them.  [...]]]></description>
            <link>http://www.mftransparency.org/pages/2010/03/11/transparency-india-gandhi-and-the-seven-deadly-social-sins/</link>
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            <title>Mobile banking and the future of transparency</title>
            <description><![CDATA[by Noah Simpson

Mobile banking is defining modern microfinance. Within the space of a few short years it has exploded to become a hot-button issue in the microfinance community, especially because of its potential to reach the unbanked. CGAP’s Technology Blog has covered the emergence of branchless banking extensively, and several of its recent posts have [...]]]></description>
            <link>http://www.mftransparency.org/pages/2010/03/09/inventory-mobile-banking-and-the-future-of-transparency/</link>
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            <title>Calculating interest rates using newton&#8217;s method</title>
            <description><![CDATA[by Tim Langeman
In a previous blog post, I described how to use a spreadsheet like Microsoft Excel to calculate interest rates.  Again, interest rate calculations are at the core of MFTransparency&#8217;s ability to provide accurate data that can be compared across various products offered by numerous MFIs. In the last post we looked at Excel&#8217;s [...]]]></description>
            <link>http://www.mftransparency.org/pages/2010/03/05/calculating-interest-rates-using-newtons-method/</link>
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            <title>MFTransparency blog RSS feed</title>
            <description><![CDATA[by Michael Tucci
Just wanted to share a quick note with our blog readers that MFTransparency has added an RSS feature to this blog. Check it out here, or look for the link in the bar to the right of these blog posts! By adding our RSS feed to your personal blog feed, RSS reader, or [...]]]></description>
            <link>http://www.mftransparency.org/pages/2010/02/26/mftransparency-blog-rss-feed/</link>
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            <title>Calculating interest rates with excel</title>
            <description><![CDATA[by Tim Langeman
Chuck Waterfield and Alexandra Fiorillo, MFTransparency&#8217;s CEO and VP respectively, have been doing many presentations about how interest rates can be calculated using our excel  tool, but we haven&#8217;t yet featured a story on our blog about our data collection process and our corresponding excel tool. Although technical, interest rate calculations are [...]]]></description>
            <link>http://www.mftransparency.org/pages/2010/02/24/calculating-interest-rates-with-excel/</link>
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            <title>Twitter &#8220;chat&#8221; on microfinance</title>
            <description><![CDATA[by Andres Hammer 
#mifimon (Microfinance Mondays) is a biweekly Twitter discussion group that aims to host an exchange ideas about issues relevant to the microfinance industry. Every Monday, for about two hours, a group of tweeters interested in microfinance discusses a wide range of topics such as Microfinance and Technology, Women and Microfinance, and many more. [...]]]></description>
            <link>http://www.mftransparency.org/pages/2010/02/22/twitter-chat-on-microfinance/</link>
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            <title>Indian interest rate caps and transparency</title>
            <description><![CDATA[by Noah Simpson
According to a recent report by MicroCapital, a new bill introduced in the Indian parliament would remove the existing cap on microloan interest rates. This has important implications for transparency, and provides a unique opportunity to examine the effects of rate caps on microfinance.
Setting an interest rate cap has been advocated as a [...]]]></description>
            <link>http://www.mftransparency.org/pages/2010/02/19/indian-interest-rate-caps-and-transparency/</link>
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            <title>Thoughts on MIX relaunch</title>
            <description><![CDATA[by Michael Tucci
At the end of last year, the MIX (Microfinance Information Exchange) relaunched their website with the help of the MasterCard Foundation (click here for their official press release). For those familiar with the MIX, you’ll know that they have implemented some major changes in the last few months culminating in this relaunch. All [...]]]></description>
            <link>http://www.mftransparency.org/pages/2010/02/17/thoughts-on-mix-relaunch/</link>
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            <title>What does the data tell us? (Part 2)</title>
            <description><![CDATA[by Jessica Haeussler
In my last post, I examined data for Russia, Mexico and India, three large microfinance markets in different regions. We looked at the correlation between portfolio yield and loan size and discussed interest rates and profitability for MFIs with different focuses in terms of rural/urban populations and share of female clients. Comparing these [...]]]></description>
            <link>http://www.mftransparency.org/pages/2010/02/15/what-does-the-data-tell-us-part-2/</link>
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            <title>My inspiration for microfinance was born in Haiti</title>
            <description><![CDATA[by Chuck Waterfield 

All around the world, our thoughts are with the Haitian people, as they work together to overcome yet another tragic situation.  The Haitian proverb – beyond mountains, more mountains – has been so poignantly true for them.
I know Haiti.  I lived in Haiti for three years, and though that was a long [...]]]></description>
            <link>http://www.mftransparency.org/pages/2010/02/10/1995/</link>
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            <title>The case for pricing transparency</title>
            <description><![CDATA[by Alexandra Fiorillo
We are proud to announce that our very own Jessica Haeussler has an article on pricing transparency published in the most recent MicroBanking Bulletin. Please go here to read it. The MicroBanking Bulletin (MBB) is the &#8220;premier benchmarking source for the microfinance industry. The industry commentary, analysis and benchmarks are widely used by [...]]]></description>
            <link>http://www.mftransparency.org/pages/2010/02/09/the-case-for-pricing-transparency/</link>
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            <title>Transparent pricing initiative in Kenya</title>
            <description><![CDATA[by Jordan Filko

Jambo! I would like to share a bit in this post about recent work in Kenya, where I spent three weeks in January with Alexandra Fiorillo (Vice President, MFTransparency) continuing the data collection process for MFTransparency’s Transparent Pricing Initiative in Kenya. Kenya is the first African country where we have implemented the Initiative [...]]]></description>
            <link>http://www.mftransparency.org/pages/2010/02/08/transparent-pricing-initiative-in-kenya/</link>
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            <title>Microfinance and disaster relief in Haiti</title>
            <description><![CDATA[by Noah Simpson

January&#8217;s 7.0 magnitude earthquake that decimated the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince and surrounding areas has been a hard trial for one of the world’s poorest nations. Amid reports that the death toll has surpassed 200,000, aid continues to arrive in Port-au-Prince. The Haitian infrastructure is severely damaged, and homes, businesses, and many other [...]]]></description>
            <link>http://www.mftransparency.org/pages/2010/02/05/microfinance-and-disaster-relief-in-haiti-2/</link>
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            <title>What does the data tell us?</title>
            <description><![CDATA[by Jessica Haeussler
We have looked at the correlation between loan size and portfolio yield on several occasions and noticed that the shape of the curve closely follows that of loan size and operating expenses. For several markets, these country graphs suggest that a number of MFIs are making yields above the market average in a [...]]]></description>
            <link>http://www.mftransparency.org/pages/2010/02/04/what-does-the-data-tell-us/</link>
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            <title>Welcome to our blog!</title>
            <description><![CDATA[by Alexandra Fiorillo
Welcome to MFTransparency’s blog.  We pride ourselves on using our website to provide the global microfinance industry with accurate and transparent pricing data as well as educational and informational materials related to transparency in microfinance. However, we would also like to be able to offer a more informal venue where we can discuss [...]]]></description>
            <link>http://www.mftransparency.org/pages/2010/02/03/welcome-to-our-blog/</link>
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