A team of microfinance professionals at L&T Retail Finance Group, which is in turn a part of L&T Finance, is assessing villages in other northern states, where the company plans to foray shortly.

“We are extremely happy with the growth of our microfinance business and we will very soon be present in almost every state,” said Dinanath Dubhashi, vice-president, L&T Retail Finance Group.

For the rest of the story, follow this link

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Loan officer safety – a low key topic so far – seems to becoming more imporant as incidents of attacks on Field Officers increase.

While there is no industry wide tracking of such data, Live Mint today carried a report with some stats and data -

• In the last three months, two loan officials were murdered in Karnataka in separate incidents. The officials, employees of Hyderabad-based SKS Microfinance Pvt. Ltd, were on their way to disburse cash when they were attacked, chief executive Suresh Gurumani said.
• Bangalore-based Grameen Koota has faced three instances of armed robbery in the past year.
• In the same period, Kolkata-based Bandhan’s branch office in the city was looted.
• Another Kolkata institution, Ujjivan Financial Services Pvt. Ltd, has faced five robberies in the last four months.

In the same article, Samit Ghosh of Ujjivan summed it up best, when he said – “The entire transaction in microfinance business—disbursement, collection of instalments—is in cash. So much cash in hand is a big issue, and it puts our staff at huge risk,” said Samit Ghosh, founder and chief executive, Ujjivan.

Some practices that are being used (and could be adopted by other MFIs) to prevent such incidents -

1. SKS’ loan officials are starting to carry chilli spray with them and are training in self- defence.
2. The firm is also ensuring that its officials do not go into deep, secluded, forest areas and is giving them bags without its logo.
3. Bandhan ensures that whatever money its loan officials collect is disbursed immediately, so they do not have to travel with much cash.
4. Tamil Nadu’s Grama Vidiyal Micro Finance Pvt. Ltd (GVM) has collection rounds between 6am and 9am, so its officials can reach the branch office and banks in daylight.

Read the full article on Live Mint here -

http://livemint.com/2009/09/16232521/Microfinanciers-concerned-as-l.html?d=2

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So when Knowledge @ Wharton came out with an article outlining some success stories in this area, it was a delightful reading for all of us at MTA.   In this well written piece, EGMM of Andhra Pradesh, who we know as doing some fantastic work in this space have been profiled.

Some interesting excerpts from this article :-

• There are 122 million 20-to-25 year olds in India. Of these, 70 million are from the rural poor.
• In a country with a billion-plus population, an estimated 88.5 million people between the ages of 15 and 29 need to be trained. But only a very small fraction receives vocational training, according to Narendra Jadhav, a member of the government’s Planning Commission.
• Only 11% of those between 17 and 23 years old enroll in higher education.
• TeamLease, a staffing company in Bangalore, says 58% of India’s youth are not prepared for work or suffer from some kind of skill deprivation.
• And while around 14 million people enter the workforce every year, only 7% work in the organized sector.

A link to the article is below

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/india/article.cfm?articleid=4408#