FAI’s Managing Director Tim Ogden was cited in an article in Philanthropy News Digest about the successes and failures of the microfinance movement, and how technology is changing the future of microlending. Ogden discussed the ongoing need for subsidy in microfinance, how to factor in the true costs of digitization, and the risk that high-tech approaches exclude the poorest and hardest-to-reach populations.
"The great success of microfinance,” said Ogden, “has been in radically increasing the number of people who have control of their own decisions because they now have access to some financial tools that enable them to choose to save, to borrow, to insure themselves, to send money, all at their choosing, rather than somebody else's. For microfinance to thrive, it needs to find a mechanism that allows for continuous subsidy and a new narrative that is more honest about the actual cost of each small investment.”
Read the entire article, by Daniel X Matz, here.