http://www.nextbillion.net/blogs/2006/05/03/microfinance-and-it-glass-half-full-or-glass-half-empty Comments for "Microfinance and IT: Glass Half Full or Glass Half Empty?" en http://www.nextbillion.net/blogs/2006/05/03/microfinance-and-it-glass-half-full-or-glass-half-empty <p><p style="padding: 5px; float: right;"><img src="http://www.nextbillion.net/files/images/BOP ATM G-Cash.thumbnail.jpg" alt="" title="" class="image thumbnail" width="75" height="100" /></p>Optimists often cite microfinance as a &quot;<a href="http://www.unfpa.org/gender/micro.htm">development success story</a>,&quot; but realists know the truth - it suffers from high interest, misrepresentation of repayment rates, poor risk management, and insufficient scale. (More on the &quot;dirty little secrets&quot; of microfinance at the excellent <a href="http://microcapital.org/cblog/index.php?/archives/210-Chicago-Microfinance-Conference-Sets-Pace,-Providing-Almost-Everything,-Even-Dirty-Little-Secrets.html">MicroCapital blog</a>.)<br /> <br /> Similar unrequited optimism is often true for information technology - there&#39;s a <a href="http://www.edc.org/GLG/gkd/">lot of talk</a> about the benefits of computers, PDAs, cell phones, the Internet, etc. when it comes to development. Take off the rose-colored glasses, however, and you&#39;ll notice a slew of defunct telecenters and failing IT-for-development projects, where the absence of business plans/models couldn&#39;t overcome the innovative application(s) of technology.<br /> <br /> Don&#39;t get me wrong - there ARE a lot of legitimate success stories in both <a href="/blogs/topic/microfinance">microfinance</a> and <a href="/blogs/topic/telecommunications-and-it">IT for development</a>. But I think each sector could learn a lot from the other in order to scale up successfully and attain the kind of development outcomes to which they are often attributed.<br /> <br /> This intersection of microfinance and technology hasn&#39;t been explored enough, but it got a start last Tuesday when about 50 people attended a <a href="http://www.microlinks.org/ev_en.php?ID=10558_201&amp;ID2=DO_TOPIC">Microfinance Technology Fair</a> organized by USAID, Chemonics, and QED here in Washington. Attendees saw first-hand how technology is being applied to microfinance. Demonstrations of a cell phone transfer system (<a href="http://www.chemonics.com/projects/content/GCash.pdf">G-Cash</a>), hand-held POS device (<a href="http://www.sevaksolutions.org/">RTS</a>), PDA loan software (<a href="http://www.accion.org/products.asp">PortaCredit</a>), and an open-source MIS (<a href="http://www.mifos.org/">MIFOS</a>) highlighted the afternoon. (Full disclosure: the organizers were kind enough to invite yours truly to help introduce these presenters.) While I loved seeing the technologies in action, I have some reservations about their ability to take microfinance to the next level without additional work:<br /> <br /> </p><br class="clear" /><p><a href="http://www.nextbillion.net/blogs/2006/05/03/microfinance-and-it-glass-half-full-or-glass-half-empty">read more</a></p> http://www.nextbillion.net/blogs/2006/05/03/microfinance-and-it-glass-half-full-or-glass-half-empty#comment Financial Services Microfinance Telecommunications and IT Wed, 03 May 2006 11:00:12 -0500 Rob Katz 2630 at http://www.nextbillion.net