Microfinance International becomes a business case study at Harvard Business School
Harvard Business School published a business case study profiling Microfinance International Corporation. The case is titled “Microfinance International Corporation: No, Not Another Microfinance Case” and was written by Professor Daniel Isenberg, an International Entrepreneurship lecturer. Atsumasa Tochisako, President and CEO of MFIC, has been invited to attend the class on February 11, 2008 to share his experiences and views
“I am hopeful that our attempts and experiences will inspire students to come up with innovative solutions to social problems that are believed to be unsolved,” said Tochisako. Addressing an issue that has global implications – the financial integration of the poor - MFIC represents a unique example of entrepreneurship in today’s international business environment. It takes unprecedented approaches in every aspect of its business – from products and services to marketing, funding, and personnel.
MFIC’s is focused on leveraging immigrant remittances to improve the financial infrastructure for the unbanked in developed and developing countries. With an understanding that a significant number of the worlds’ poor households depend today on the income earned by their family members working in industrialized nations, MFIC tries to maximize the economic capacity of the migrated bread-winners by offering them a line of financial services including microcredits in the US. In addition, it also tries to ensure developmental impacts of the money these immigrants send by channeling remittances through professional financial institutions. To do so, the Company offers a remittance solution to banks in the US and microfinance institutions in developing countries, thus enabling financial integration of the poor on both sides of the border.
MFIC is capitalized by many socially conscious individual investors as well as the Development Bank of Japan and FMO, the Netherlands’ Development Finance Corporation. With this support, MFIC is preparing to expand its business from the Americas into Europe, Africa and Asia. It is also enlarging the network of Alante Financial, its retail financial service branches for immigrants. Since the beginning of 2008, it has added four new branches and is preparing to open two, bringing the total to 15.
“I am hopeful that our attempts and experiences will inspire students to come up with innovative solutions to social problems that are believed to be unsolved,” said Tochisako. Addressing an issue that has global implications – the financial integration of the poor - MFIC represents a unique example of entrepreneurship in today’s international business environment. It takes unprecedented approaches in every aspect of its business – from products and services to marketing, funding, and personnel.
MFIC’s is focused on leveraging immigrant remittances to improve the financial infrastructure for the unbanked in developed and developing countries. With an understanding that a significant number of the worlds’ poor households depend today on the income earned by their family members working in industrialized nations, MFIC tries to maximize the economic capacity of the migrated bread-winners by offering them a line of financial services including microcredits in the US. In addition, it also tries to ensure developmental impacts of the money these immigrants send by channeling remittances through professional financial institutions. To do so, the Company offers a remittance solution to banks in the US and microfinance institutions in developing countries, thus enabling financial integration of the poor on both sides of the border.
MFIC is capitalized by many socially conscious individual investors as well as the Development Bank of Japan and FMO, the Netherlands’ Development Finance Corporation. With this support, MFIC is preparing to expand its business from the Americas into Europe, Africa and Asia. It is also enlarging the network of Alante Financial, its retail financial service branches for immigrants. Since the beginning of 2008, it has added four new branches and is preparing to open two, bringing the total to 15.