Introduction to microfinance
Understand the international and French microfinance market
Know the key players
Identify new distribution channels
Understand the main products including SRI
Introduction:
- “Micro - credits: Small amounts, major effects?”
- General background: from development finance to sustainable finance
- Fighting poverty with a viable banking business model
- Microfinance: What it is and what it is not. A comparison with plain vanilla corporate credits
Microfinance origins:
- The forerunners of Grameen Bank
- A three - phase evolution from the seventies till now
- An initial product offer based on a non - satisfied market
- The current product diversification: micro - insurance, housing credit and Islamic finance.
Microfinance Institutions (MFI)
- Typology of organisations and financial viability model
- The major MFI's worldwide at a glance per geographical area
Case Study: ACCION, a success story in Latin America versus the crash of Banco des Exito
Other main players of the Microfinance world market
- Sovereign states
- State - owned financing institutions
- Commercial banks
- Private investment funds and charity foundations (Bill & Melinda Gates, Soros, Ford Foundation…)
Microfinance as new asset class
- Presenting the main Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) funds and the quick growth of this market
Recent developments in the Microfinance market
- Diversification towards new target populations: urban poverty groups, developed economies
Case Study: The example of ADIE in France
- New distribution channels: Internet Microfinance platforms.
Case Study: Kiva (USA) and Babyloan (France)
Conclusion and Evaluation
Introduction:
- “Micro - credits: Small amounts, major effects?”
- General background: from development finance to sustainable finance
- Fighting poverty with a viable banking business model
- Microfinance: What it is and what it is not. A comparison with plain vanilla corporate credits
Microfinance origins:
- The forerunners of Grameen Bank
- A three - phase evolution from the seventies till now
- An initial product offer based on a non - satisfied market
- The current product diversification: micro - insurance, housing credit and Islamic finance.
Microfinance Institutions (MFI)
- Typology of organisations and financial viability model
- The major MFI's worldwide at a glance per geographical area
Case Study: ACCION, a success story in Latin America versus the crash of Banco des Exito
Other main players of the Microfinance world market
- Sovereign states
- State - owned financing institutions
- Commercial banks
- Private investment funds and charity foundations (Bill & Melinda Gates, Soros, Ford Foundation…)
Microfinance as new asset class
- Presenting the main Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) funds and the quick growth of this market
Recent developments in the Microfinance market
- Diversification towards new target populations: urban poverty groups, developed economies
Case Study: The example of ADIE in France
- New distribution channels: Internet Microfinance platforms.
Case Study: Kiva (USA) and Babyloan (France)
Conclusion and Evaluation
Sylvaine Chubert

Sylvaine has made much of her professional career in major banking groups (ING, Rabobank, BNP Paribas) where she performed commercial and risk management operations of Corporate, Trade Finance and Real Estate Project Finance. Sincemore than 10 years, she is also a visiting professor at the University of Paris Dauphine where she teaches in the Structured Finance Banking to the Finance Insurance Masters. Today she intervenes as a trainer and consultant to banks and large exporters.
Sylvaine Chubert also teaches :
- Deals in the New World of Debt (Catalogue English)
- Due diligence d’actifs immobiliers (Catalogue Marchés financiers)
- Financement des matières premières (Catalogue Marchés financiers)
- Le financement des énergies renouvelables (Catalogue Finance d'entreprise)
- Les dettes alternatives en Europe (Catalogue Marchés financiers)
- Les financements immobiliers structurés (Catalogue Marchés financiers)
- Les financements structurés (Catalogue Marchés financiers)
- Les fondamentaux du financement de projet (Catalogue Marchés financiers)
- Microfinance et «social business» (Catalogue Marchés financiers)
- Project Finance Fundamentals (Catalogue English)
- Real Estate structured finance (Catalogue English)
- Structured Finance (Catalogue English)
- Structured Finance Fundamentals (Catalogue English)