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MFTransparency Discusses New Transparent Pricing Data from Bosnia, Cambodia, and Peru in 2 Webinars

Published on November 13, 2009

LANCASTER, PA, November 11th – MicroFinance Transparency (MFTransparency) will host two webinars Wednesday November 18th 10:00 PM -11:30 PM EST and Friday November 20th 11:00AM – 12:30 PM EST focused on the recently released true-cost microfinance pricing data from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cambodia, and Peru. The two time slots will help accommodate as many people in different time zones as possible. Each webinar will cover all three countries. The discussions will interpret the data and its effect on market conditions as well as answer questions from the public. See below for registration information.

MFTransparency is a global initiative for fair and transparent pricing in the microfinance industry. The group hopes to establish the industry standard for pricing disclosure, and believes collecting, calculating, and presenting information on credit products and their prices in a clear and consistent fashion will facilitate a fair exchange between suppliers and consumers of microcredit products.

MFTransparency is the first to collect and publish consistent, true-cost pricing data. “This webinar will provide participants the opportunity to interact with the data we have collected and discuss some of its implications for the microfinance industry,” said Chuck Waterfield, the founder and CEO of MFTransparency.

The webinars are an open forum for addressing such questions and an opportunity for all microfinance stakeholders to join MFTransparency and guest experts in discussing and interpreting the new transparent pricing data.

The discussions will explore pricing practices, variations across MFIs, product types and sizes as well as underlying price differentiating factors such as geography and regulation. MFTransparency presents the prices in each country using a Price Curve, which will play a prominent role in explaining price conditions during the webinars. To view Price Curves and Country Data for Bosnia and Cambodia, please follow this link: Country Data.

Industry and country experts will join MFTransparency’s Chuck Waterfield, Larry Reed and Alexandra Fiorillo (more details to follow).  Questions the webinar will address include:

Sample Questions

  • How do banks and MFIs respond when asked to report their interest and fees publicly in a common APR or EIR format?
  • How do government policies affect the prices for loans in a country?
  • Does the average price of loans increase as loan sizes get smaller, and how does the shape of the price curve differ in different countries?
  • How much variation is there in price on loans of similar size, and how might transparency change prices over time?

Registration Information

We will be using GoToMeeting to host this webinar so that you will be able to follow our graphs of the data and send us your questions about it.  You will need to register with them in advance.  Please choose which time will work best for you and click on the appropriate link to register as soon as possible, since places are limited.

Title: MFTransparency Data Launch Call 1
Date:
Wednesday, November 18, 2009 (and Thursday November 20 in some time zones)
Time:
10:00 PM – 11:30 PM EST (2:00 PM Sydney, 10:00 AM Jakarta and Dhaka, 8:30 AM New Delhi, 6:00 AM Nairobi)
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/835845168

Title: MFTransparency Data Launch Call 2
Date:
Friday, November 20, 2009
Time:
11:00 AM – 12:30 PM EST (7:00 PM Nairobi, 5:00 PM Frankfurt, 2 PM Sao Paulo, 12 noon La Paz, 10 AM Mexico City)
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/602014793

About MFTransparency

MicroFinance Transparency is an international non-governmental organization founded in 2008 with the purpose of facilitating transparent markets through the dissemination of true cost information to all market stakeholders. MFTransparency represents an industry movement toward fair practices and responsibility. Based in the United States, the group has organized transparent pricing efforts in Bosnia, Peru, Cambodia, Azerbaijan, Kenya and Bangladesh. For more information please visit (www.mftransparency.org).  Grameen Bank’s Dr. Mohammad Yunus and Elizabeth Littlefield, CEO of CGAP, as well as more than 200 industry professionals and organizations have committed to transparent pricing by endorsing MFTransparency and its initiative. For information on MFTransparency staff, please see Who We Are.

For questions relating to this press release please contact:

Jordan Filko
MFTransparency
+31.68.416.42.62
[email protected]


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