14:30 - 16:15

Bob Bragar (The Netherlands)
Director - Strategies for Impact Investors

Michael Steidl (Germany)
Founder and Managing Director - Micro Service Consult GmbH

Microfinance Works – But How And For Whom?

Recently, there has been substantial criticism about the impact and social performance measurement of microfinance. The public debate has centered on excesses of commercialization of microfinance institutions, the lack of scientifically sound impact studies, and doubts about evidence of poverty reduction through microfinance. This presentation will argue that there is clear evidence that microfinance creates value. It is different models about the appropriation and distribution of value that define who benefits most: investors in microfinance institutions, current clients, future clients, or society as a whole.

Michael Madden (Ireland)
Founder and Managing Partner - Ronoc

Transforming Microfinance

Ronoc is an impact investor specialising in transforming Eurasian microfinance institutions (MFIs). Ronoc seeks to invest in emerging economies that display significant scope for growth and where the banking sector remains largely under developed and the penetration of financial services is minimal. Ronoc's investment strategy focuses on transforming MFIs into a broad-based financial platforms that facilitate access to efficient and affordable financial services. Ronoc believes that with the correct development strategy MFIs can grow in parallel with their respective economies and achieve scale. Ronoc looks to add value to the MFI transformation across the following key areas: boosting growth in earning assets, improving credit risk management, enhancing operating and IT efficiencies, facilitating access to domestic and international capital markets and building human resource capacity. Ronoc believes that by building up a sustainable financial institution who can engage with the communities it serves in a responsible way, will in turn make a significant contribution to wealth creation and poverty alleviation for the emerging economy as a whole. Ronoc has tried and tested this investment strategy as evidenced by our Mongolian case study.

Paul Blyth (United Kingdom)
Head of Business Development - Finethic Microfinance Fund

Would The World Be Better Off Without Microfinance?

This presentation will touch on some of the issues that have faced the industry, and move into an analysis of how microfinance can "work" for investors. Paul's investors have both done good and done well; he will demonstrate how it is possible to achieve risk-adjusted returns whilst focusing on Social Performance ... one interesting nugget from the presentation - in microfinance, good Social Performance co-relates with good financial performance - perhaps mainstream financial services can learn from the microfinance industry?

Joan Trant (United States of America)
Executive Director - International Association of Microfinance Investors

Microfinance as a Blueprint for Impact Investing: What Lessons Have We Learned and How Can We Leverage Them?

As an important and maturing strategy in impact investing, microfinance has been successful in attracting major players, building cross-border expertise and generating capital flows to enterprises aimed at the base of the socioeconomic pyramid. At the same time, microfinance has fallen short of some expectations and faced unforeseen hurdles. This presentation will engage fellow workshop panelists and participants in reviewing key lessons from microfinance and exploring how we might leverage the learnings to develop more responsible, sustainable investments across the impact investing ecosystem.