Read how the winner and finalists of the European Microfinance Award 2018 on Financial Inclusion through Technology have creatively used technology to improve the quality and efficiency of their services. This new brochure presents the background on the Award, outlines the selection process, the Award ceremony and showcases the Award winner (Advans Côte d’Ivoire, Ivory Coast) and the two finalists: KMF, Kazakhstan, the MFC ...

   Date: Wednesday, 13 February, 2019  Location: Brussels, Belgium The European Commission – Directorate General for Agriculture and Rural Development (DG AGRI) and the European Investment Bank (EIB) are pleased to announce the upcoming fi-compass event ‘EAFRD financial instruments – adequate products for financing rural infrastructures’, to be held on 13 February 2019 in Brussels, Belgium. This fi-compass EAFRD event aims to further raise awareness and facilitate ...

The Borrow Wisely Campaign strengthens borrowers’ financial literacy knowledge and skills through educational materials, client workshops and one-on-one engagement between borrowers and loan officers. Our final evaluation results of the 2018 Borrow Wisely Campaign are impressive: 24 Campaign partners across 16 countries in Europe and Central Asia reached 311,363 people with campaign messages! Our partners educated people directly (individual meetings, workshops, ...

One of the key objectives of the EaSI programme is to stimulate the financial and social inclusion of borrowers wishing to set-up or develop their micro-enterprises and who may have limited or no access to the conventional credit market. To this end, under the EaSI Microfinance Guarantee, the offering of non-financial support in the form of business development services (“BDS”) as a complement to ...

What a busy and successful year 2018 was for the MFC! We are thrilled to bring you this review of our key activities and achievements. Enjoy and benefit from the resources we’ve prepared for you! This year, we’ve been working hard to help advance best practice and develop financial inclusion by: Supporting microfinance institutions digitalization: FinTech mapping: We conducted mapping studies ...

The EaSI Technical Assistance recent workshop, entitled “Applying for and Contracting EaSI Financial Instruments for Microfinance Institutions” was designed to help Albanian microfinance institutions learn what services are available under the EaSI Technical Assistance Programme and understand how to apply for them, as well as the EaSI Financial Instruments. The workshop took place in Tirana, Albania on 13 December 2018, and was sponsored ...

Date: 16.01.2019,  11:00 CEST Topic: EaSi TA support for MFC Members Speaker: Aldona Rutkowska, Capacity Building Manager, MFC Are you a manager in charge of planning training and technical assistance in your MFI? We invite you to join our upcoming webinar to learn how the EaSi TA program can support your internal capacity building plans. We’ll also use this webinar ...

The Harvard Business School (HBS) – Accion Program on Strategic Leadership in Inclusive Finance is the first executive education program of its kind to provide high-level management and leadership training to those shaping the microfinance industry, including CEOs of leading microfinance institutions and executives of mainstream banks entering the microfinance market. The intensive six-day program offers leaders from around the world ...

The MFC’s recent “The Tech-and-Touch Mix in Microfinance” case study considers how MFIs in Europe incorporate high-tech solutions with a traditional high-touch approach to providing microfinance services, and discusses emergent models to combining the two approaches. Read more “Experimenting with Digital Solutions: Initial Lessons from European Microfinance” reviews digital applications and experimentation in digital transformation of EU MFIs. Using a digital ...

  The MFC research reviews the involvement of microfinance institutions in the provision of non-financial services to clients and other constituents. The provision of business development services (BDS) alongside credit has become a salient feature of many European MFIs. Over the years, different models of BDS have emerged, varying both by level of integration with core financial services and the ...