MFI came into existence when the lack of access to credit for the poor is attributable to practical difficulties arising from the discrepancy between the mode of operation followed by financial institutions and the economic characteristics and financing needs of low-income households. For example, commercial lending institutions require that borrowers have a stable source of income out of which principal and interest can be paid back according to the agreed terms. However, the income of many self employed households is not stable, regardless of its size. A large number of small loans are needed to serve the poor, but lenders prefer dealing with large loans in small numbers to minimize administration costs. They also look for collateral with a clear title – which many low-income households do not have. In addition bankers tend to consider low income households a bad risk imposing exceedingly high information monitoring costs on operation.

MicroCredit which is an integral part of Microfinance, is the extension of very small loans (microloans) to those in poverty designed to spur entrepreneurship. These individuals lack collateral, steady employment and a verifiable credit history and therefore cannot meet even the most minimal qualifications to gain access to traditional credit.
Business Model for getting financially viable

Over the last ten years, however, successful experiences in providing finance to small entrepreneur and producers demonstrate that poor people, when given access to responsive and timely financial services at market rates, repay their loans and use the proceeds to increase their income and assets. This is not surprising since the only realistic alternative for them is to borrow from informal market at an interest much higher than market rates. Community banks, NGOs and grassroot savings and credit groups around the world have shown that these microenterprise loans can be profitable for borrowers and for the lenders, making microfinance one of the most effective poverty reducing strategies.

To the extent that microfinance institutions become financially viable, self sustaining, and integral to the communities in which they operate, they have the potential to attract more resources and expand services to clients. Despite the success of microfinance institutions, only about 2% of world’s roughly 500 million small entrepreneur is estimated to have access to financial services.

The Grameen Bank which is a synonym for MicroFinance, makes small loans to the impoverished without requiring collateral. Established in 1976, the Grameen Bank (GB) has over 1000 branches (a branch covers 25-30 villages, around 240 groups and 1200 borrowers) in every province of Bangladesh, borrowing groups in 28,000 villages, 12 lakh borrowers with over 90% being women. It has an annual growth rate of 20% in terms of its borrowers. The most important feature is the recovery rate of loans, which is as high as 98%. A still more interesting feature is the ingenious manner of advancing credit without any “collateral security”. The Grameen Bank lending system is simple but effective. The system of this bank is based on the idea that the poor have skills that are under-utilized. A group-based credit approach is applied which utilizes the peer-pressure within the group to ensure the borrowers follow through and use caution in conducting their financial affairs with strict discipline, ensuring repayment eventually and allowing the borrowers to develop good credit standing.

The Business Model on which most of the Microfinance works is solidarity lending. Solidarity lending is a lending practice where small groups borrow collectively and group members encourage one another to repay. It is an important building block of microfinance. Solidarity lending lowers the costs to a financial institution related to assessing, managing and collecting loans, and can eliminate the need for collateral.

An early pioneer of solidarity lending, Dr. Muhammad Yunus of Grameen Bank in Bangladesh describes the dynamics of lending through solidarity groups this way:

“… Group membership not only creates support and protection but also smooths out the erratic behavior patterns of individual members, making each borrower more reliable in the process. Subtle and at times not-so-subtle peer pressure keeps each group member in line with the broader objectives of the credit program…. Because the group approves the loan request of each member, the group assumes moral responsibility for the loan. If any member of the group gets into trouble, the group usually comes forward to help.”

The above cited Model helps in minimizing the delinquency rate. The source of income for most of the Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) are the high rate of interest they charge to the borrowers, The real average portfolio yield cited by the a sample of 704 microfinance institutions that voluntarily submitted reports to the MicroBanking Bulletin in 2006 was 22.3% annually. Microfinance institutions can broaden their resource base by mobilizing savings, accessing capital markets, loan funds and effective institutional development support. A logical way to tap capital market is securitization through a corporation that purchases loans made by microenterprise institutions with the funds raised through the bonds issuance on the capital market. There is atleast one pilot attempt to securitize microfinance portfolio along these lines in Ecuador. As an alternative, BancoSol of Bolivia issued a certificate of deposit which are traded in Bolivian stock exchange. In 1994, it also issued certificates of deposit in the U.S. (Churchill 1996). The Foundation for Cooperation and Development of Paraguay issued bonds to raise capital for microenterprise lending (Grameen Trust 1995). Successfull MFIs like Grameen Bank even generate revenue by providing training programs / research programs to journalists or upcoming MFIs.

Another kind of MFI in India is indigenously developed system known as Chit funds; they are the closest thing to a bank in many parts of India. They mobilize huge amounts of small savings and offer the same as some sort of microfinance. Properly used chit funds are an effective tool to meet unplanned, unforeseen and unexpected expenses, especially for the middle class and small businessmen. Chit fund is a dual-purpose instrument for both borrowing and saving. It has no financial intermediation. Each chit group is in a way a self-help group. Members invest a fixed amount every month. This collection is available for borrowing. Auctions are conducted every month. The members who bid for the highest discount win. The dividend at every auction is distributed to the subscribers out of the discount (the difference between the chit amount and the amount bid), after deducting the group foreman’s commission. Shriram Chits has more than 22 lakh subscribers.

Proposed Model for MFIs
If we consider the fact that MFIs role is to lend loan to impoverished sector of the society so that they raise their living standards and can provide a stable lifestyle to their families, which can be possible only when a group of member can come up with an business idea. But how successful the entity is going to be after its formation and will result in timely repayment of the loan cannot be guaranteed. I personally feel, instead of letting the inexperienced group to decide upon the venture all the time, MFIs or NGO’s should set up ventures which can be either be an subsidiary of existing stable company or something which can traded outside the community, guaranteeing the flow of funds. This will bring an stable or regular source of income for many households without the worries of loan. The reason behind this though is the criticism behind the Microcredit institutions. Some experts argues that most microcredit institutions are overly dependent on external capital. A study of microcredit institutions in Bolivia in 2003, for example, found that they were very slow to deliver quality microsavings services because of easy access to cheaper forms of external capital.Global data tables from The Microbanking Bulletin show that savings represent a small source of funds for microcredit institutions in most developing nations.

Because field officers are in a position of power locally and are judged on repayment rates as the primary metric of their success, they sometimes use coercive and even violent tactics to collect installments on the microcredit loans. Some loan recipients sink into a cycle of debt, using a microcredit loan from one organization to meet interest obligations from another.

Recent move by indian govt to repay the loan taken by the farmers of certain segment is the result of delinquency. To avoid such incidences again, its better to invest in upbringing of this segment by bringing an regular source of income to the households.

The need for Technology
Technology in Microfinance will not only help in retrieving the data for deserving borrowers but can also help in tracking the flow of funds. Theoretically, microfinance may encompass any efforts to increase access to, or improve the quality of, financial services poor people currently use or could benefit from using. For example, poor people borrow from informal moneylenders and save with informal collectors. They receive loans and grants from charities. They buy insurance from state-owned companies. They receive funds transfers through remittance networks (like Hawala). Technology can help monitoring and improving the accessibility of funds to the deserving section of the society and at the same time can help Microfinance institutions to measure and disclose their performance both financially and socially to the government.

On the lines of corebanking solutions, all MFIs in a country can be interlinked to each other through network which will ultimately help govt. organization to follow the flow of source of funds. This in other way can help in AML.

Proper Consulting can help MFI’s or NGO’s to decide upon the right industry which can be established to an particular location. Taking a place like vidarbha into account, which lacks in proper irrigation facilities, can be best judged to be the right place for an power sector company to establish an solar power system. This will be financially much viable then lending loans to struggling families of farmers who end-up in repaying their existing loans.

Grant proposal examples are readily available, if you know where to search for them. Your best and most up to date resource for all manner of grant proposal examples is, quite obviously, the Internet. You can gain instant access to thousands of professional examples that can be easily tailored to suit your needs.

2. What You’ll Find

There are a wide range of examples available and no two are alike. You’ll find thousands of different templates, which you can use to put together a professional and well-structured grant proposal in a way that’s easy to understand. The trick is to find one with a layout that most closely suits your requirements. Peruse these examples and select the one that most closely matches your own envisioned layout and guidelines.

3. Define The Details

Once you’ve chosen a template that suits your purposes you’ll need to structure your grant proposal and a good way to do this is to choose selected heading and to group your information into easy to understand sub-headings.

4. Your Vision

Create a summary of your plans and how you intend to use grant funding and support to realize your project. Define the problems that have caused a need for this project and how it will improve the community at large.

5. Operating Procedures

Explain in detail how you would implement grant funding. This is your opportunity to show the grant funding organisation what you would do with their offered support. Lay out operating procedures and explain how your project will be implemented.

6. The Beneficiaries

Who will benefit from this project? How will your project make a difference or improve your local community? Who is the project aimed at? Define your target market or audience and explain how this group or organisation will benefit from your actions.

7. Your Needs

In this section of the grant proposal you will describe to the grant organisation your specific needs. Do you require funding, equipment, research and surveys, the assistance of staff or something as rudimentary as office furnishings and transportation vehicles? Stipulate your requirements in an easy to understand manner.

8. The Budget

Funding is an important aspect of any grant proposal and all grant proposal examples will contain elements describing how to outline a budget. Be sure to thoroughly research this aspect of your proposal, as many grants are lost because the applicants did not clarify their funding requirements or budget projections with enough accuracy.

9. Research

Grant proposal examples are built around adequately researched information. Know your stuff! To build an accurate picture of the project for a grant funding organisation you need to include as much information as possible. Do market research, do product testing, conduct surveys in the local area and include all pertinent information in your grant proposal. If similar projects or organisations have operated in the area, conduct comparative surveys and offer accurate projects as pertains to your budget, expenditure and expected income. Vagueness can destroy your chances of a successful outcome.

Overly Optimistic Rate of Return Assumption

One of the first problems that appear to certified public accountants and chartered financial analysts looking at Ramsey’s materials concerns the commonly quoted “12%” rate of return used in examples.

That’s way too optimistic an assumption. Yes, some years investments do generate 12%. And some specialty categories of investments (like small company stocks) may return roughly 12% over lengthy periods of time. But a traditional portfolio of diversified stocks and bonds will probably over long financial planning horizons deliver average annual returns of more like 7%-9%.

You will not, sadly, find it possible to consistently earn 12% on a well-diversified, moderate-risk investment portfolio. No way.

Inflation Ignored Only Leads to Future Disappointments

Inflation represents another issue that an accountant or good financial planner will want to include in financial plans but an issue that isn’t always thoroughly discussed by Dave. Inflation can be tricky to incorporate. But inflation will probably eat away at the value of the savings you accumulate.

If you’re earning 9% on your investments, for example, but inflation runs 3%, you’re not really making 9%. You’re making 6%. You can more implicitly recognize inflation in your financial planning calculations, by the way, by using the net-of-inflation return in your financial calculations. To adjust for inflation when you expect a 9% return and 3% inflation, make the computations with a 6% return.

Expense Ratios Matter

One final investment issue (for some investors) needs to be highlighted. While investment expense ratios often don’t matter much for people just starting to save money–probably this is Ramsey’s typical reader in fairness–by the time one accumulates a more size-able investment nest egg, investment costs matter. And they matter a whole lot.

In fact, if an investment pays a 2% expense ratio–and that sort of expense might be pretty normal once all the investment costs are tallied–that amount doesn’t sound so bad. But it’s pretty outrageous in most circumstances.

Consider the situation, for example, where you’ve got a 9% rate of return from an investment but suffer from a 3% inflation rate. In actuality, you’re really only earning 6% on your money. (The inflation that’s baked into the return is not really profit to you.)

If out of your net 6% investment return, you pay 2% in investment fees–in other words, if you pay out 2/6ths of your profit for investment expenses–that’s equivalent to a 33% income tax. Ouch.

In the end–just to play this sad song to the very end–while you start with 9%, after you subtract 3% inflation and 2% in investment fees–you’re left with only 4%. And note that value is a pre-tax return. So if you pay income taxes on your investment profits (and you probably will eventually), you’ll actually end up with something less than 4%. Double ouch.

Putting These Financial Planning Insights Together

The nit-picking shared in the preceding paragraphs may seem a little unfair. But to illustrate how significant the mistakes become when combined, ponder the following scenarios:

If you and your spouse save $5,000 a year into a retirement fund for 30 years and say you’ll earn 12% annually, the calculated future value equals roughly $1,200,000.

Going online to sell things has become increasingly more popular each year and this shows no sign of slowing down. Whatever old items you have the chances are that there’s someone somewhere who is willing to pay you for it. On eBay you ship the items at the buyers expense just like a real store so as long as select the correct category and offer it in the right price range, chances are you’ll get someone bidding on that item.

Another option is to list things for free on craigslist.org, which is very local for whatever part of the US you are living in.

Consider charities such as the Salvation Army or Goodwill. They are always on the lookout for clothing items and other household goods, your donations can make someone else very happy indeed and it return you’ll get a tax reduction. You can go to their websites for valuations and more information. This is especially useful when in comes to large electronic items such as computers. By donating a computer worth 500 dollars you can deduct that amount from your taxable income!

dedicated to my friends: www.ponderwithcanaan.com ( Medicare saves big business )

What is the message here? First is the fact that her body needed more time to recover and rest from surgery. Next, the move was a challenge for everyone, taking it’s toll emotionally, physically, metabolism, and mentally. Juggling the two babies and a major move by yourself is Herculean, to be sure. Finally, and the beautiful part of this story that I share with you is that Ashley listened to what her body, and spirit, was telling her.

There are metaphysical causations for dis-ease. (Metaphysical is defined as that being outside of, or beyond, the physical realm) Metaphysically, a hearing problem is telling you that you’re not listening. Louise Hay is a wonderful teacher who shares with us the mental causes for physical illness. She gives us guidance to alter those thought patterns which form our experiences. When we are able to shift our thinking towards health and examine what is holding us back, balance returns to our lives.

Ashley did listen to her physical situation, taking the necessary steps and time to heal and rest. She also realized that right now, even working part time, was more than she could deal with. It takes daring for us women to admit that we perhaps aren’t super human after all. It’s something I’ve learned throughout my life, not always the simple way either. I admire my friend for her courageousness in asking for help, honoring her needs and giving herself permission to step back, take a breath and let go. And she’s blessed with a very supportive, kind and loving husband who honors her needs.

I urge you to listen more to your body, what you are feeling, what you are thinking and what your emotions are trying to tell you. When you’re tired, rest. When you’re stressed, take a break. Even 15 minutes with a magazine, some music, a walk in the park, or sitting with a good book can relax you and allow you to let go. On days you really don’t feel well, what part of you is hurting? What is that pain telling you? In her book Heal Your Body Louise Hay defines the problem of fatigue, as having a probable cause of “resistance, boredom. Lack of love for what one does.” Breast problems “represents mothering and nurturing and nourishment.” Criticism, when pandered to long enough, may lead to conditions such as arthritis. Guilt always seeks some form of punishment, leading to pain.

An occupation or job that is draining you can make you physically ill. The same is true with a toxic relationship, whether with a mate, a friendship or family members. The courage to examine and listen metaphysically to what your body is telling you, is not always easy. But that is okay. That’s how we learn. Sometimes it take guts to say ‘no’ to certain situations. And it is not easy to dissolve an attachment to a position upon which we depend for our livelihood and support.

Try letting go of preconceived notions of what “should be” and just do only what really brings you joy. If you are afraid of disappointing others, you might be surprised to know that it’s okay with them. One of my personal hang-up’s has always been what others will think or how I might disappoint them. The times when I am completely honest with sharing my feelings is when they are the most considerate and supportive.

As the fall and winter “flu season” seems to be coming, take stock of what you’re feeling. For me, at the end of the day before bedtime, is a good time. Just take a few moments and briefly concentrate on how you feel, where tension is focused in your body and what your emotions were at various times throughout the day. Again, I urge you to let this be simple; don’t add more stress to your busy life. Make it easy, fun and light-hearted.

It is important that you learn how to budget and how to stick to it so that you are in a position to make sound investment decisions that will benefit you in the long run. It never hurts to allocate time to learning more about money and the way it works. Expand on your horizons and look for way to improve your knowledge on investing, business practices and finance management. You will have money saved that will need to be invested and it is advisable to know the options that are available to you.

This will give you a basic guideline of which option suits you best. Having the finance basic can go a long way into helping you achieve your financial dreams.

Many search engine optimisation “experts” run into problems by trying to be too clever and keep one step ahead of the search engines. The keep themselves in work by constantly having to update sites so they they are regarded as perfect by various search engines but this doesn’t work on a long term basis. If you stick with a few simple rules and methods you will constantly outrank many sites that change their strategy every month.

All is not lost! Ryan Moran recently released Xtreme Rankings which is an e-book and a set of Videos that will show you the simple methods that work. By following these methods you’ll be able to get any page you want ranking well in Goolge and other search engines. Ryan will show you everything that you need to know and in an easy to follow style.

Just to prove to myself that the book and videos were easy to follow I gave them to my daughter and asked her to come up with a plan to promote a website. She had no problems what so ever in following what Ryan was showing her and the next day she presented me with a blueprint to promote a site she made about her favorite band.

Xtreme Rankings comes in 2 Parts along with a Bonus Book.

Part 1. The Xtreme Rankings Ebook

Part 2. The acompanying Xranking Videos

Bonus Product: The Joel method e-book

The Book part of Xtreme ranking Guides you through what you need to do to get to the top of Gooles rankings. The books contains no filler and it just nugget after nugget of pure information. I just wish some other recently released products could have been this useful. You get all the information you need and see all the tools which Ryan uses.

The series of videos that Ryan includes are ideal for people who prefer to be shown how to do things rather than read about it. Each video elaborates on what the book has told us and shows us step by step everything Ryan does to conquer the search engine rankings. As with the book Ryan doesn’t hold back and shows us all the tools and resources he uses.

I am not sure why Ryan felt he needed to include a bonus product. Xtreme Rankings stands alone as a truly great product at a great price. However we are given the bonus book and it’s well worth reading. It shows how a friend of Ryan used a simple method to create a good daily income.

The first thing you need to do is decide if you’re selling yourself, an author driven website, or selling expertise, a topic driven website.

Once you’ve made your decision, you’ll need to do your keyword research on your topic. If you’re creating an author driven website, you’ll want to make sure that you include your name in your keywords.

Here are the strategies you need to implement:

1. Optimize your website. You’ll need to optimize each page individually, so if you have a large list of keywords, then you can optimize each page for a different keyword phrase.

When you’ve finished optimizing your site, you’ll need to implement your search engine strategy.

2. Submit your site to the major search engines.
Although the major search engines, Google, Yahoo, and MSN are more or less true search engines because they spider sites, if you’re not linked to any other sites,
these search engines won’t find you.

You can have other sites link to you, but the problem here is that it may take awhile for the search engines to find your site and spider it even if you are linked.

You can significantly speed up the process simply by submitting to the major search engines manually. If you use a sitemap, you can submit your sitemap to both Google and Yahoo and have your site spidered within a few days.

It may take a few months to get your site completely spidered, especially if it’s a large site, but again, a sitemap can help you with this process.

3. Build backlinks to your website.
Find writing directories and other places where writers, and readers, hang out and post a link back to your site. The more links you have pointing back to your website from other relevant resources, the higher your rankings will be, and your Google page rank will be higher.

You can also find general directories to submit your website. General directories can help you with building higher page rank for your site.

4. Write articles.
Although some writers disagree with using articles as a promotion technique, claiming that you should only write articles for pay, I disagree.

When you write articles, you are giving readers a taste of your writing. You are offering value.

Articles can also help you build tons of one way backlinks to your website through article directories, as well as build a following for your writing.

Which had you rather do: get paid $25 for an article and only be paid once, or earn money every month, over and over for the same article by using it to drive traffic to your website?

5. Participate in forums and communities.
I know. This is a tough one. Many writers are introverts, or they’re not interested in marketing.

If you want to sell your writing, you have to market. Although search engines can get you in front of your readers, search engines don’t buy. Readers do.

The important part of the training is to read opponents and to learn study techniques. Players must understand the different trends like stack defense, blitz etc used by the opposition team. Players are also trained to understand the individual tendencies. Quarterback should place great innovation in his game as the defense is more pressure in the game. All these aspects are addressed in courses for quarterback where young players are put into different situations that will teach them great lessons about the game.

The first phase of training is to understand what is at the head of the opponents. Players will be taught about different defense runs and strategies as a 3-5-3 or 4-3 defense. Teamwork is also a focus as quarterback must team up with fellow forwards to develop plans for scoring. The game experience is given during these training sessions will find safeties, defense, etc. attacks should be planned out from the middle of the field to half of the field. The young players have been trained to throw skills, aptitude and any other aspects that make a complete quarterback.

High school and my students are trained to rotate their roles and manage change in the game. Quarterback is made to study videos of football games strategies and will be under the guidance of expert coaches. The idea is to develop the complete player who can play the game in all forms and under all circumstances. The training will start directly from the school and the children will learn all about the basics of football and how they can go to become a great quarterback and maybe one day play in the NFL. [share]

Writing With SEO In Mind

A successful WordPress blogger needs to first learn how to write with search engine optimization in mind. The title of each post is crucial for achieving good rankings. Adding keywords to the title can make the post rank a lot better for those keywords, and making the title catchy can help it to get linked to a lot more. Creating a good title can be the difference between being successful with search engine rankings and not getting ranked at all.

Once a catchy title that include keywords has been written, the blogger will move on to the post itself. Headings should be used within the post, and variations of the desired keyword should be used in the headings. The section beneath the heading should accurately describe what the heading is about. This serves a few purposes. First, the description will likely contain additional words that will be searched for, and also people will be more likely to link to the post if it is helpful.

In order to achieve good rankings, the post must be long enough to be helpful. A 50 word post may be difficult to get ranked, while a 500 word post will rank in a much better location. Whether the post is long or short, it will get ranked in a better position if there are enough inbound links pointing to it.

Optimizing Your Theme

The second main aspect of search engine optimization for WordPress is optimizing the theme itself. WordPress blogs tend to have a few critical errors that hurt their search engine rankings. Most of the time, the heading tags are used in the wrong places. Make sure that there aren’t any heading tags being used in the sidebar of your theme. Headings should only by used within your posts to describe a specific section. Using excess headings all over will dilute the effectiveness of your real headings.

You should also make sure that the ‘heading 1′ tag is being used around your most important keyword, and that your most important keyword appears in your HTML title. This will help you to rank better for that keyword. Many bloggers keep the default settings, and this will surely hurt your traffic in the long run. Using these techniques, you should really be able to increase your search engine rankings.