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Author: Daniel Rozas
You know the game of musical chairs: players sit on chairs arranged in a circle. The music starts and the players start circling – dancing, running – while chairs are progressively removed. Then the music stops and chaos erupts as the players seek to find a place to sit. In Mexico, the number of chairs remaining is few indeed, even as the MFIs continue to dance. The recently published study by the Microfinance CEO Working Group shows just how few chairs are left.

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Author: Daniel Rozas
Last week, MFIN, received official recognition from the Reserve Bank of India as a Self-Regulatory Organization in charge of regulating the activities of its members. This is the first time a financial organization received such official recognition in the country. Indeed, I'm not aware of any other countries that have a similar arrangement, so this may well be a global milestone as well. This is a big deal that bodes well for the future development of the Indian microfinance sector. It also reminded me of an article co-authored by M-CRIL's Sanjay Sinha and myself back in January 2010, nearly a year before the onslought of the Andhra Pradesh crisis. MFIN had been formed just months before, and had developed a Code of Conduct that included many important features, including strong limits to multiple lending - a maximum of 3 concurrent loans or combined amount of 50,000 rupees (~€750 at the time). However, we felt that as a purely self-regulatory institution, MFIN lacked the teeth to effectively monitor its members, and we made the case for a system quite similar to the one that's just been implemented in India. I look forward to seeing it thrive and set an example for others.