The paper is divided into six general themes. The first theme is clients: “who are we reaching and how do we know who our clients are?” An article by ACCION, describing its method of poverty assessment, is the most useful part of this section, concisely outlining the criteria of determining who they serve and what product to deliver them. The second theme is “what kind of services and products are we delivering?” It looks into the question of specification versus diversification, and includes two case studies from Africa, PRIDE Tanzania and Uganda Microfinance Union: PRIDE offers only one product, a solidarity group loan, the benefits and problems of this approach are briefly discussed. UMU, on the other hand, offers a full range of financial services and products and offers an interim report on its successes.

A third report from Compartamos in Mexico briefly suggests that its four financial products may develop into a more diversified series of products, a change driven by competition. The third theme continues to explore the question of products and services, looking at the Bank Rakyat Indonesia and Mibanco in Peru, two MFIs with great success in delivering specific products and services to their target market. BRI is primarily rural and is focusing on capacity building, while Mibanco is located mainly in and around Lima and its main product under discussion, a home improvement loan called Micasa, has had great success and has opened up a new client base.

The fourth theme is evaluation: “how do we evaluate MFIs?” This section discusses the utility of microfinance rating agencies and the difference between credit ratings and global risk assessments. It includes a brief presentation by the Microfinance Information eXchange (the MIX), an information provider for the microfinance industry. Cost was highlighted as a key issue in rating agencies, as it can be difficult to justify a high cost to an MFI’s managing board, though participants agreed that after an assessment is completed, board members generally understand and value it. The fifth theme is provision of services, looking at different methodologies. Reports from India and Bangladesh discussed solidarity groups and other group lending mechanisms. The final theme was efficiency: “how can we make ourselves more efficient?” The main focus here was on offering staff incentives and new microfinance technologies. This section is one of the largest and most detailed, with field reports from Egypt, Uganda, and India.

The conference proceedings describe many different areas of the MFI sector, both geographically and in terms of products and services. The best way to read this paper may be to focus first on the “discussion” sections at the end of each theme treatment, to get an overview of different perspectives and concerns, and then to explore the themes in more detail. The sixth theme, on efficiency, is perhaps the most useful, presenting the most concrete data.

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