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Microfinance Information eXchange Shares New Updates for Rural Bankers

The Microfinance Information Exchange, or MIX Market, was formed under the belief that a lack of transparency across microfinance institutions (MFIs) and other microfinance players around the world contributes to stymied growth and prevents institutions from performing their best. Using no deposit bonuses when playing online casino games is also assisted by microfinance transactions. Continue reading on how to claim no deposit bonus codes and win big without spending your own cash. As such, MIX collects and standardizes financial, operational, product, client and social performance data from MFIs and presents a variety of free web-based tools for MFIs to analyze their performance.

MIX Market’s Asia representative Elizabeth Larson presented during the Rural Bankers Association of the Philippines Microenterprise Access to Banking Services (RBAP-MABS) 2012 National Roundtable conference to explain how MIX Market’s online benchmarking tools and customized data reports can deliver critical information to rural bankers in the Philippines, as …

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Sharing Experiences Using Mobile Money to Enable Banking Services at Next Bank Asia Event

On May 9-10, 2012, I had the great honor of speaking at the Next Bank Asia in Singapore that was all about the future of banks, financial services, and money. The conference focused on the changes in the consumer market, fast evolving technology, and the key factors that are changing the financial services landscape.

The conference included some of the real movers and shakers in the “new vision” of banking including Brett King, Scott Anthony, James Gardner, Derek Sivers, Richard Kelly and Andrea Kershaw, Gordon Cooper, Oliver Weidlich, Scott Bales and other leading experts. View the presentations online.

Although this is a different audience than I am use to presenting to, I found tremendous interest in the work in the Philippines to incorporate mobile money to better enable banking services.

John Owens talks about emerging markets at #NBASG12 from Next Bank Asia on Vimeo.

Albert van den Broek summed up …

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RBAP-MABS Innovative Use of Mobile Money Highlighted During the 5th Mobile Commerce Summit Asia 2012

The United States Agency for International Development -supported Rural Bankers Association of the Philippines – Microenterprise Access to Banking Services (RBAP-MABS) Program joined mobile money experts from all over the world at the 5th Mobile Commerce Summit Asia 2012 in Singapore. The two-day conference themed as, “Evaluating the Best Formulas for the Next Winning M-Commerce Move” gathered high-level mobile commerce industry professionals that have brought unique insights from experienced ventures and tested concepts of the field.

The mobile commerce market in Asia has been growing extremely fast in the past few years. The event served as a forum for banks, financial institutions, m-commerce technical providers, telecom operators, telecom regulators and financial regulators to have insightful discussions on regulatory policies, innovative models, and lessons learned in implementing mobile commerce in varying areas and location.

In one of the panel discussion, Ms. Roselle Hernandez of RBAP-MABS presented its mobile phone banking initiative.  …

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Study shows SMS Reminders Boost Ontime Loan Payments

Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) led by Professor Dean Karlan of Yale University, in partnership with United States Agency for International Development-supported Rural Bankers Association of the Philippines-Microenterprise Access to Banking Services (RBAP-MABS) Program,  conducted a study to test the effectiveness of using text messages (SMS) for loan payment reminder. Updates on this study were shared with RBAP-MABS on January 20, 2012.

In partnership with two RBAP-MABS participating banks, Green Bank Inc. and the Rural Bank of Mabitac, IPA studied the impact of SMS reminders with 1,259 first time borrowers. The study was designed to investigate the importance of the SMS’s timing, framing and personalization of reminders sent to borrowers.  For a period of sixteen (16) months between January 2009 and April 2010, 840 randomly selected loan clients received SMS reminders in their local dialect reminding them to pay their loans.

IPA found that the most important factor leading to …

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Latest UpdatesMABS Highlights

RBAP-MABS Outlines Financial Education for Branchless Banking During the 8th Citi-Financial Times Financial Education Summit

The 8th Citi-Financial Times (FT) Financial Education Summit, the most established annual international forum on financial literacy, was held on November 28-29, 2011 in Jakarta, Indonesia. With the theme “Empowering the Disadvantaged: Inclusive and Innovative Approaches to Financial Capability”, the Summit focused on how to increase the uptake of financial education initiatives at grassroots levels – microentrepreneurs, migrant workers, and low-income youth – and also explored the use of technology and media in scaling programs and reducing the cost of delivery.  The roles of national frameworks and multi-stakeholder partnerships in addressing large-scale financial capability and consumer protection needs were also addressed.

In one of the panel discussions, the United States Agency for International Development-supported Rural Bankers Association of the Philippines-Microenterprise Access to Banking Services Program presented its Financial Education for Branchless Banking Project, an initiative implemented in partnership with MasterCard Foundation and Microfinance Opportunities. The presentation highlighted how …

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Latest UpdatesMABS Reports

2011 MCPI Conference highlights collaboration for responsible microfinance

Rural Bankers Association of the Philippines-Microenterprise Access to Banking Services (RBAP-MABS) Program helped facilitate two sessions of the 2011 Microfinance Council of the Philippines Inc. (MCPI) Conference last July 28-29 at the Hyatt Hotel Manila. The conference themed, “Making a Difference: Multi-Stakeholder Action towards Responsible Microfinance” aims to promote responsible financial products and practices while addressing global pressing issues and challenges to microfinance.

On the first day of the conference, RBAP-MABS Chief of Party John V. Owens facilitated a session on Avoiding Over-indebtedness with Ms. Mila Bunker, President of Ahon Sa Hirap Inc. (ASHI) and Chairperson of MCPI. The session discussed the causes of over indebtedness and proper ways to conduct credit investigation and cash flow analysis. In particular, these would prevent a borrower from taking in more loans beyond their capacity to pay – a financial practice known as multiple borrowings. The practice of multiple borrowings was also examined …

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In the NewsMABS Tips

Updates on the BAP-Credit Bureau

Mr. Leonilo ‘Topper’ Coronel, Managing Director of the Bankers Association of the Philippines Credit Bureau (BAP-CB), presented the private credit bureau’s latest changes and activities to participants of the 2011 RBAP-MABS National Roundtable last May 23-24 in Manila. He shared the latest developments in the effort of BAP-CB and a consortium of microfinance institutions’ (MFIs) to build a responsive credit information system for the microfinance sector. (see Philippine Star article)

He reported the over 60% growth in the number of participating rural banks from 28 to 46 in May 2011, attributing this increase to the BAP-CB’s efforts to reach out to rural bank federations in the country, and the assistance of the USAID-supported RBAP-MABS Program.

He also underscored the enhancements in the bureau’s Negative File Information System (NFIS) particularly its accessibility via the Internet, which allows the credit bureau to automatically process requests on a daily basis, even on non-working …

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How to Avoid an India-type Microfinance Crisis in the Philippines

As prologue to the BSP’s (Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas) National Microfinance Stakeholders Summit held on April 5, the Rural Bankers Association of the Philippines Microenterprise Access to Banking Services (RBAP-MABS) with support from USAID/Philippines and the Microfinance Council of the Philippines (MCPI) jointly held a pre-summit seminar on April 4 discussing “How to Avoid an India-type Microfinance Crisis in the Philippines”.

Opening the forum, RBAP President Corazon Miller described the India microfinance crisis as “a wake-up call for microfinance practitioners in the Philippines to begin the proactive process of strengthening transparency, following consumer protection practices, improving governance, and becoming better at communicating the value of Microfinance services.”

Led by Ms. Elisabeth Rhyne, Managing Director of ACCION International’s Center for Financial Inclusion and organized for the microfinance stakeholders in the Philippines particularly rural banks, NGOs, credit cooperatives and others, the seminar provided interesting discussions on some of the issues …

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MABS HighlightsMABS Tips

Marketing Guru Mike Rios shares secrets to successful marketing with rural bankers

After his successful marketing strategies session during the 2010 RBAP-MABS National Roundtable Conference in Manila, marketing guru Mike Rios came back to the Philippines to share effective marketing strategies with the Philippine rural banks.

A former Nike and Coca-Cola creative adman, Mr. Rios believes that marketing has a greater purpose – that if it can sell cigarettes, fast food, and “brown sugar water” to the masses, it can also help motivate people to live healthier, wealthier, and happier lives as well. A big idea writer and strategist, he’s done work for ANZ Bank, Forte Insurance, MTV Exit, PSI, UNICEF, WING and is the Lead Social Marketing Consultant for the US non-profit Microfinance Opportunities (MFO).

On February 15, 19 officers and staffers from eight RBAP member rural banks gathered at the RBAP Building in Manila to learn about successful marketing for their products and services from Mr. Rios. He gave an …

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MABS TipsMicroinsurance

Options for Microinsurance Sales and Servicing

MABS Microinsurance Coordinator, Ruth Aseron shares lessons learned during the RBAP-MABS Regional Roundtable Conference 2010.

The RBAP-MABS Regional Roundtable Conferences in Manila and Davao each featured a session on Microinsurance that sought to provide participants insights on the various distribution models which rural banks are allowed to adopt.  Presented were perspectives on how rural banks should formalize its microinsurance distribution operations in compliance with the provisions of the National Regulatory Framework and with regulations issued by the Insurance Commission (IC) and the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP). The session focused especially on Section 6 of the Microinsurance National Regulatory Framework, which provides entities engaged in informal insurance or insurance-like activities three (3) options to formalize their microinsurance operations:

Become an agent or broker of a licensed microinsurance company
Partnering with a third-party broker or agent to offer microinsurance
Join an existing MBA or Cooperative Insurance Society (CIS)
  1. Become an agent
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