What are the barriers to growth of microfinance?
There are multiple ways to look at this. From a high level view, CGAP identifies scale, depth and cost as the key challenges: scaling up quality financial services to serve large numbers; achieving the depth needed to reach poorer segments and more remote people; and lowering costs to both clients and service providers. The Grameen Mifos program focuses on achieving sustainability and scale – enabling MFIs to sustain their operations and scale to serve more people in more ways. The success of microfinance as a technique has encouraged the creation of many Microfinance Institutions targeting more and more regions and segments of the poor. Yet, transitioning from start-up to sustainable operations and then to self-sustaining is not a sure path. Reaching more remote areas and more segments of the poor population requires sustainable organizations to carry out the work. There are many MFI organizations, but a wide range with regard to their ability to sustain and scale their operations. Fu
