 iBoP Asia, together with the Ateneo Innovation Center and the Enviromental Science Department of the Ateneo de Manila University, is sponsoring a talk that will focus on the Philippine microfinance industry and the efforts made to bring greater efficiencies and scale in microfinance operations to reach deeper into the bottom of the socio-economic pyramid.
Microfinance has long been touted as a means to support micro-entrepreneurs and assist in breaking them from the chains of poverty. With its massive success worldwide, it was given greater profile with the awarding of microfinance pioneer Mohammed Yunus of Bangladesh-based Grameen Bank the Nobel Peace Prize. As microfinance becomes mainstream in the Philippines, commercial banks, most notably BPI and RCBC, have geared up for microfinance operations with innovative technologies. This talk will discuss recent trends in the Philippine microfinance industry and the efforts by the Microenterprise Access to Banking Services (MABS) Program to introduce micro-agriculture, mobile phone banking, online learning, branchless banking, and netbook loan processing to bring greater efficiencies and scale in microfinance operations and reach deeper into the bottom of the socio-economic pyramid.
MABS is a United States Agency for International Development (USAID) funded program of the Rural Bankers Association of the Philippines (RBAP). It has been successfully operating for more than 12 years and has engaged more than 90 of the country’s top rural banks. These MABS partner banks have successfully applied the MABS Approach to microfinance and have collectively disbursed more than PhP26.6 billion of loans since 1997. These banks have an aggregate outstanding loan portfolio of over PhP1.68 billion to more than 220,000 active borrowers nationwide.
When: Friday, 26 February 2010, 4:30 to 6:00pm
Where: Ching Tan Lecture Room, SOM111, Ateneo de Manila University, Katipunan Ave., Loyola Heights, Quezon City, Philippines
This seminar is sponsored by:
· Environmental Science Department
· Ateneo Innovation Center
· Environmental Science Society
· ES Alumni
· iBoP Asia Project, Ateneo School of Government
About the Speakers:
Atty. John V. Owens, MABS Chief of Party, has more than 19 years of experience in microenterprise development and microfinance. He has worked in Jamaica, the Eastern Caribbean, Bolivia, Peru, and the Philippines. His areas of expertise include planning, designing, and implementation of microfinance services. He has developed several courses in microfinance best practices, product design, administration and management of microfinance units, and savings mobilization, including the conceptualization and development of the use of SMS-based mobile phone banking applications for rural banks and their microenterprise clients in the Philippines.
Mr. Jove I. Tapiador (BS ES ’96), MABS Regional Manager for Luzon is responsible for expanding the outreach and network of microfinance services through its partner rural banks in Luzon. He assists banks implement microfinance best practices, develop training materials for microfinance operations, and provide technical services to answer their operating needs. Mr. Tapiador has a Master’s degree in Entrepreneurship from the Asian Institute of Management and a BS Environmental Science degree from the Ateneo de Manila University.
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