Microfinance India

Microfinance India: The Social Performance Report, launched in 2011, is now an annual publication that captures the status and progress of microfinance sector in moving towards higher responsibility and social performance, alongside the growth in outreach and quantum of loans. The Social Performance Report 2013 evaluates the prevalent responsible finance standards and tools of assessments, as well as attempts to initiate a framework for tracking composite performance, financial and social, of MFIs year on year on a set of metrics. The report presents a discourse on the status, innovative cases, and gaps, in policies and practices of MFIs, including a deeper study of human resource practices. The theme on role of investors and lenders in ensuring that social performance of MFIs continues from previous years, with an added scrutiny of the question of these institutions being responsible funders. The interplay of social performance and compliance to the existing regulatory guidelines for MFIs is analysed separately. This year’s report for the first time includes a chapter on applying the responsible finance lens on the SHG–bank linkage programme.