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Micronomore Universe 2010 Conference

Soliman Unfair to the president

SEEDFINANCE Program for the Poor

In marked contrast to Soliman’s promotion of mendicancy is that of the ongoing plan of Seedfinance Corp., a microfinance advocate, that is making inroads in the fight against poverty. We attended a strategy meeting in Cebu last week of Seedfinance and its partners, which include rural banks, microfinance firms, cooperatives and foreign nongovernment organizations, and we cannot but feel proud about the way they empower the poor, so unlike the dole-out mentality that Soliman fosters. Under the Seedfinance concept, they fund the programs of rural banks, co-ops and microfinance that are meant to help the poor.

According to Carlos Ani, Seedfinance chairman, the firm is a microfinance lender that aims primarily to bring the benefits of microfinance to microenterprises, self-employed workers, family-based and community-based food production and other livelihood activities through the extension of financial, technical and business-development facilities to workers’ associations, cooperatives, rural banks, microfinance nongovernment organizations, people’s organizations, and commercial, industrial and agricultural enterprises, corporations, partnerships and proprietorships.

Seedfinance has already partnered with providers of services and other concerns of the small and medium enterprises with a view to ensuring that they get cost-efficient infrastructure support. The company has partnered with Encash, a deployer of ATM units, so that rural banks and co-ops can service the needs of their customers. The Encash ATMs are linking to Megalink, Bancnet and Expressnet allowing for synergy in the tie-up between the two entities. Also, during the Cebu conference at Crown Regency Residences, providers of microinsurance, which include the Philippine partner of Munich Re, one of the world’s largest reinsurers, unveiled a microinsurance plan to protect the clients of rural banks, co-ops and other microfinance institutions from possible losses arising from typhoons and other natural calamities.

During the conference, Encash president Eric Severino voiced the possibility of making rural banks and co-ops have the capability to issue ATM cards to their own clients through the Seedfinance-Encash tie-up. The opportunities for empowering the poor through this include less fees for remittances for families of overseas Filipino workers, as well as lower transaction costs for the poor families. Severino said there is now a pilot program being tested in Bicol that would allow the propoor institutions to have interlinked transactions sans the exorbitant costs associated with the need for the software. In short, there is outsourcing available for the required banking services for the entities under the Seedfinance-Encash tie-up.

Dubbed the “Hosted Core Banking Service,” the program would allow for an automation of banking services without need for paying up-front the software license fees, plus there is no longer any need for competency issues and skills required to run the new technologies. These trailblazing concepts of Seedfinance are what Soliman and company should attempt to foster in the country to address the poverty- alleviation issues. We are pretty sure that if Soliman plunks even just P1 billion to Seedfinance and Encash from out of her budget for the CCTs, the number of the poor families will drastically be cut with their self-worth intact and their productivity assured. But then, Soliman has her priorities, no matter how skewed they may be.

Read more -> http://businessmirror.com.ph/home/opinion/2966-soliman-unfair-to-the-president

Posted on November 2, 2010
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