Love Bird
...Kashf’s Mission
…..is to alleviate poverty by providing quality and cost effective microfinance services to low income households, especially women in order to enhance their economic role and decision-making capacity.
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President’s Message
Compared with the previous year, the market for microfinance has undergone a rapid shift. There has been a marked increase in the number and the typology of players, particularly in terms of the entry of four new microfinance banks. However, despite this new development, scale continues to be a major challenge for the market. An analysis of the Punjab market has revealed that the total number of potential households that can access microfinance is about 5.6 million, with 1.6 million in the urban areas and 4 million in the rural areas. At the same time, the overall market penetration in the Punjab is 12%, implying that 88% of the market is still untapped. Given this scenario, we will continue our efforts to demonstrate scale with sustainability in the sector and ensure access to finance becomes the rule rather than the exception.
This analysis is further exacerbated when one reviews women’s access to financial services, in Punjab only 40% of the total clients that are provided access to microcredit services are women; this figure would be much lower if Kashf’s numbers were taken out of the estimate. This trend is in stark contrast with other countries of the region, where women are the fore runners of the microfinance movement. We will continue to play a pioneering role in the area of financial services that target women by offering a range of innovative and women focused products. As a result of our commitment to ensuring gender equity in financial services, we were awarded the AGFUND International Prize in Microcredit for 2005.
Our research during this year has...
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