Microfinance Gateway>SKS Microfinance Float Poses Question of Profit and Exploitation

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Home » News » SKS Microfinance Float Poses Question of Profit and Exploitation

SKS Microfinance Float Poses Question of Profit and Exploitation
Blakely, R.

Plans for a stock market flotation by India’s largest private microfinance lender have further inflamed the debate over whether the industry should be putting profits or the wellbeing of its impoverished clients first. SKS Microfinance specializes in lending small sums to very poor borrowers, many of them women, a process that it argues is helping to tackle poverty by funding small businesses.

The group, whose investors include Sequoia, has talked to three investment banks, Citigroup, Credit Suisse and Kotak, about a listing in Mumbai that could raise up to US$250 million.

The deal, earmarked for the autumn, will be the first of its kind in India, one of the world’s biggest microfinance markets. It will offer investors exposure to a sector that many believe has huge potential. Some estimates have suggested that global demand for microcredit stands at about US$250 billion, ten times the amount lent so far.

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Posted: 23 Oct 2009
Source: The Times
Originally Published: 22 Oct 2009

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