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Author: MicroCapital team
MicroCapital: How long have you been concerned about possible overheating in the Cambodian microfinance market? Kea Borann: Concerns of the market overheating started at least as early as 2015. Since then, the total outstanding portfolio of the industry has been growing at an average of 25 percent per year, even as the number of loans has remained unchanged at 2.3 million. This seems to mean that the same clients are taking on more debt when their loans are renewed. The average loan size grew from USD 1,691 to USD 3,003. Dina Pons: This phenomenon is coupled with another: While most loans had a tenor of 12 to 24 months in the past, we now see loan maturity as high as four or even five years.

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Author: e-MFP
This is the first in a publication series of three interview pieces with the three finalists for the European Microfinance Award on "Financial Inclusion through Technology". Advans Côte d'Ivoire (Advans CI) is a NBFI in the Ivory Coast which offers payment, saving and credit services enabled by an Advans account linked to a MTN mobile money account. Advans CI has responded to traceability and safety issues faced by cooperatives paying cocoa farmers, as well as low school enrolment due to lack of regular cashflow among farmers, by offering its digital savings and payment solution, with wallet-to-bank and bank-to-wallet transfer services, enabling producers’ cooperatives to make digital payments to farmers for their crop revenue. Since 2017, Advans CI has been also providing small digital school loans, based on an algorithm reflecting farmers’ cashflows. Advans CI also successfully negotiated free MTN transfers between mobile wallets and Advans accounts for their farmer clients.