Is Group Lending a Collateral for Informal Credit?

This article explores how participation in microfinance programs affects informal credit conditions. Using data on the rural credit market of Andhra Pradesh, I provide evidence that group lending participants obtain lower interest rates from the informal credit market. This result can be explained by two main factors. On the one hand, due to joint liability, group lending clients have high incentives to monitor each other, which implies a reduction in the agency costs for moneylenders. On the other hand, as microfinance borrowers are required to invest the credit in income generating activities, they face a lower default risk. Taken together, these two mechanisms may explain why microcredit borrowers are perceived as less risky by informal lenders. Overall, the findings suggest that moneylenders benefit from the duality in the market, thus providing empirical support to recent theoretical research hypothesizing that there is a complementarity relationship between formal and informal credit suppliers.

The Impact of Joint Liability Group Lending on Lowering the Risk of Farmer and Agriculture Crowdfunding in Indonesia

Research on agriculture crowdfunding in developing countries is still limited. The crowdfunding platform offers uncollateralised loans to farmers. Therefore, they apply joint liability group lending to lower the default risk. However, from farmer’s point of view, joint liability causes higher risk since every group member bears his/her own risk and that of all other group members. Thus, the purpose of this article is to analyse how joint liability may lower the risk of both farmer and agriculture crowdfunding in Indonesia. A deductive qualitative research design with case study approach is used in this article. A series of in-depth interviews were conducted with one agriculture crowdfunding platform and two farmer groups. Data analysis was conducted by using pattern matching technique. The findings of this article are as follows: joint liability may lower the default risk of crowdfunding platform because the farmer groups are self-selected. The leader of the farmer group plays an important role in monitoring the members, and he may apply social sanction to the defaulting member. By implementing joint liability group lending, crowdfunding platform can provide extension services such as price certainty through contract farming, field agent monitoring and non-cash credit disbursement. These extension services help to lower the farmer’s risk.

Why Does Microfinance Target Women? Empirical Evidence from Nigeria

Over the last three decades, microfinance has featured in the Global South development policies as a potential contributor to inclusive financial services, poverty reduction and women empowerment. However, why women are the primary customers of microfinance banks and institutions remains an ongoing research subject. This article presents a study of women in Rivers State, Nigeria, using qualitative research approach. It was found that microfinance financial inclusion objectives in Nigeria are targeted at the active poor—those who own small business and rely on group lending methodology and collateral substitutes to minimize lending risks. Of the active poor, microfinance prioritizes women because of gender stereotypes that women have more “integrity,” show more commitment to loan contracts and are more susceptible to social pressure and sanctions. Targeting women is, therefore, a deliberate and strategic policy to advance the interest of microfinance backers. Therefore, this author contends that microfinance is not a scheme that provides whole-scale financial inclusion and poverty reduction. Instead, it seeks to leverage income-generating activities of the active poor to extract profits. Consequently, the article contributes towards illuminating the role of gender and local context in microfinance practices.

Evaluating the Group Lending Development at the Vietnam Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development: A Case Study in Bac Giang Branch II

Group-based lending is a form of loan provision for individuals and households in rural areas for production and consumption purposes. Proceeding from the imbalance between demand and supply on small-scale capital, and also Government policies on sustainable poverty reduction, the Vietnam Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Agribank) has coordinated with its local authorities and socio-political organizations to provide loan services via group lending. The purpose of this paper was to evaluate the status of group lending development of the Agribank-Bac Giang Branch II. The paper used secondary data collected from the branch and primary data gathered from 50 representative customers and 10 credit officers related the group lending of the branch. Data analysis methods consisted of descriptive statistics and comparative analysis, incorporated with the measurements for bank performance and quality. The findings show positive prospects in both the bank and customers for the development of group lending activity and obstacles in the group lending development of the branch. The paper also proposes some solutions for the branch to tackle difficulties and promote the development of group lending in the branch in Bac Giang province.

The Circular Economy of the Islamic Group Lending Model: Lending Money for Garbage in Return

The Model of Group Lending has been flourishing in the Microfinance Industry. This model has been used widely in the world to serve the needy and un-bankable group of people by lending money plus interest addition. In Islamic finance also embrace this model by omitting the interest and applying the Qardul Hassan to finance the members so that they can fulfill their daily need. The problem of this divine scheme is the sustainability of the microfinance since they have a burden to bare the operational cost due to the non – interest feature of the financing. This paper tries to solve this problem by utilizing the household garbage as the media to repay the Qardul Hassan financing to the Islamic Microfinance Institution (IMFI) so that it can be processed by the IMFI to create more added value product, selling it to get more income and achieving the organization sustainability.

The Circular Economy of the Islamic Group Lending Model:‎ Lending Money for Garbage in Return

The Model of Group Lending has been flourishing in the Microfinance Industry. This model has been used ‎widely to serve the needy and un-bankable group of people by lending money plus interest addition. Islamic ‎finance also embraces this model by omitting the interest and applying the Qardul Hassan to finance the ‎members' daily needs. This divine scheme's problem is the microfinance's sustainability since they have a burden ‎to bear the operational cost due to the non – interest feature of the financing. This paper tries to solve this ‎problem by utilizing the household garbage as the media to repay the Qardul Hassan financing to the Islamic ‎Microfinance Institution (IMFI). This would enable to create more added value product, selling it to get more ‎income and achieving the organization sustainability.