Videoconferences: Schedule and Overview

Date

Speaker

Topic

16 July 2009

Stuart Rutherford

Introduction to Microfinance

20 August 2009

Speaker 1. Paolo Baltao

Mobile banking: G-CASH

Speaker 2. Eric Duflos

Microfinance and the Global Financial Crisis

24 September 2009

Heather Clark

1. Financial Analysis
2. Consumer protection

29 October 2009

Alfred Hannig

Innovative Policies for Microfinance

This presentation is the first among four videoconference sessions organized under the 6th Microfinance Training of the Trainers (MFTOT) Distance Learning Course. In this session, Stuart Rutherford focused on the theory and practice of "General Purpose Microfinance" which aims at offering money management services to the poor rather than financing businesses. He also highlighted some recent trends and practices that have been proven effective in the field of microfinance such as:

1. more flexible loans that make borrowing easier for general purposes;
2. passbook savings that facilitate better short term money management; and
3. commitment savings which allows the poor to save bigger sums for longer-term or larger-scale needs. Professor Rutherford profiled latest pilot product of Safesave (a financial services co-operative), which also adopts the idea of commitment savings and aims at offering the poor greater liquidity in the form of interest rate-free loans. For more details of Safesave's latest pilot product, you can visit www.thepoorandtheirmoney.com^*

Read more about the first videoconference session^*.

Speaker Profile

Stuart Rutherford is an independent researcher and consultant in financial services for the poor, specializing in south and south-east Asia. He concentrates on field-testing innovative financial services schemes for the very poor in the countryside and in the towns. He also helps local NGOs develop financial services schemes, and provides consultancy services to a wider range of clients.

He is also the founder and Chairman of SafeSave, a financial services co-operative which pioneers ultra-flexible savings and loans services for the urban and rural poor.

He has authored and co-authored a number of publications in microfinance including "The Poor and Their Money and Portfolios of the Poor."