Dear friends,It is my pleasure to share with you our milestone of four years. Since commencing operations we have worked in 28 countries with over 400 institutions, representing 1,300 load products sold to over 45 million microfinance clients. Over the past four years we have seen the rising recognition of the importance of consumer protection, social performance and responsible microfinance, and the increased demand by all industry stakeholders for transparency in pricing. I would like to extend our thanks to all of you who have supported us over the years and helped make microfinance the first industry of any kind to practice global, voluntary disclosure of true pricing.
We mark our four years of service to the industry with the launch of a brand new website. This is part of our ongoing efforts to enhance the quality and availability of pricing information and educational materials to the microfinance industry worldwide. Our new website incorporates a variety of social media tools, so please post your comments, “like” various resources on Facebook, and “tweet” webpages you find interesting in order to draw more people to this important material. We hope you enjoy our new website and, with your help, we look forwards to many more years as the industry’s leader in pricing transparency.
Chuck Waterfield
CEO, MicroFinance Transparency |
New Website
Our new website offers a single online point of reference for microloan pricing data, news and educational resources. It is an easy-to-navigate comprehensive website dedicated to pricing transparency.
The new website includes:
MFTransparency Resource Center – comprising the industry’s most comprehensive library on pricing transparency, this repository assembles over a 100 pricing resources by topic, key word, language and technical level.
MFTransparency News Features – this fully filterable section of the website allows viewers to read the latest news and commentary about microfinance pricing transparency, as well as search for historical news pieces, blogs and announcements from MFTransparency.
MFTransparency Pricing Data – this is the microfinance industry’s platform for the disclosure of product pricing. Pricing data is presented on a country-by-country basis, with interactive pricing graphs, data tables and pricing statistics.
You can find our new website at the usual place: www.mftransparency.org.
We welcome your feedback. Please contact us at: [email protected]
New Partnerships
MFTransparency is delighted to announce new strategic implementation partnerships with Planet Rating and the MFIN India.
These partners will be working with MFTransparency in the collection, refreshing and disclosure of pricing data. For more information about these partnerships please click:
New Pricing Data
Following months of research, data collection and analysis, MFTransparency recently disclosed transparent pricing data for the following countries:
It is the first time in history that pricing data has been publicly available for these markets. Thank you to all those involved in these Transparent Pricing Initiatives.
Upcoming Events
On September 10th 2012, join MFTransparency for a training webinar on Understanding The Price Curve
Learn new insight into how product delivery costs and current microcredit prices behave very differently than commonly assumed. As well as giving a theoretical case for the cost curve and the price curve and the webinar will examine data from numerous MFIs and countries.
Register your interest in attendance here |
Paper: Is Transparency Enough?
In this paper commissioned by the MicroCredit Summit for their 2012 Global Summit, Chuck Waterfield pulls together many of the factors that influence microcredit pricing and establishes a theory of “where the price curve starts”.
This breakthrough on understanding why prices vary among microcredit products sets the groundwork for the industry to move toward a position on what prices we should charge the poor. View the resource here.
Media: Consumer Financial Education
MFTransparency has made available a series of resources for use by any industry stakeholder who wishes to educate consumers about microloan pricing. This Consumer Pricing Education Package has been developed using proven financial education models and can be adapted by users to suit local needs, provided it is not used for profit making purposes. The Package consists of:
Briefing: Call to Action
Support the industry’s continued advance on the development of responsible microfinance by endorsing and promoting pricing transparency.
Follow these ten easy steps to get you started in understanding and applying transparent pricing.
Presentation: Growth, Profitability and Compensation, how much is too much?
In June 2012 MFTransparency presented on the topic of “Growth, Profit and Compensation” levels at the Social Performance Task Force Annual Meeting, Jordan. The presentation questioned how responsible the motive for profit is when all wealth generated by microfinance comes directly from those living at the bott om of the pyramid, proposing the question “How much is too much?” .View the resource here.
Presentations for all events that MFTransparency has presented at can be found here.
Connect with MFTransparency
MFTransparency represents an industry movement towards responsible pricing in microfinance. Help promote pricing transparency by connecting with us on social media.
“Like” us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
Endorse MFTransparency
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