Abstract Book of the 3rd World Conference on Business, Management, and Economics
Year: 2025
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Sustainability, Profitability and Outreach of Microfinance Institutions in South America
Dr. Nazar Mustapha
ABSTRACT:
Building on our previous research in [Banking and Microfinance Performance: Market Power, Efficiency, Performance, Outreach and Sustainability Perspectives], this paper investigates the Sustainability, profitability and Outreach of microfinance institutions in the four largest economies in South America, namely Brazil, Argentina, Columbia and Chile. Drawing on a large dataset that include microfinance institutions from these countries, we explore several questions: Are microfinance institutions in these countries commercially viable or must rely on subsidies? What is the percentage of loans that are fully paid back? Is there a negative relationship between profitably and outreach? In other words, does profitability curtail outreach? What is the impact of female empowerment attribute on the outreach of microfinance institutions? Are female loan officers more or less risk-averse than their male counterparts in providing credit to unestablished customers. We use an up-to-date large international database consisting of the four largest economies in South America during the period 2018-2024. Microfinance data is collected from the MIX Market dataset.
Keywords: Microfinance, Sustainability, Profitability and Outreach