TY - JOUR
T1 - Banks and Microbanks
AU - Cull, Robert
AU - Demirgüç-Kunt, Asli
AU - Morduch, Jonathan
N1 - Funding Information:
The views are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the World Bank or its affiliate institutions. Morduch is grateful for funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation through the Financial Access Initiative. The Mix Market provided data through an agreement with the World Bank Development Economics Research Group. Confidentiality of institution-level data has been maintained. We thank Isabelle Barres, Joao Fonseca, and Peter Wall of the Microfinance Information Exchange (MIX) for their substantial efforts in assembling both the adjusted data and the qualitative information on microfinance institutions for us. Ippei Nishida, Mircea Trandafir and Yeon Soo Kim provided expert data analysis, and Varun Kshirsagar provided additional assistance. All views and any errors are ours only. R.Cull(*) . A. Demirgüç-Kunt The World Bank, Mail stop number MC3-307, 1818H St. NW, Washington, DC 20433, USA e-mail: [email protected]
PY - 2014/8
Y1 - 2014/8
N2 - We combine two datasets to examine whether the presence of banks affects the profitability and outreach of microfinance institutions. We find evidence that competition matters. Greater bank penetration in the overall economy is associated with microbanks pushing toward poorer markets, as reflected in smaller average loans sizes and greater outreach to women. The evidence is particularly strong for microbanks relying on commercial-funding and using traditional bilateral lending contracts (rather than group lending methods favored by microfinance NGOs). We consider plausible alternative explanations for the correlations, including relationships that run through the nature of the regulatory environment and the structure of the banking environment, but we fail to find strong support for these alternative hypotheses.
AB - We combine two datasets to examine whether the presence of banks affects the profitability and outreach of microfinance institutions. We find evidence that competition matters. Greater bank penetration in the overall economy is associated with microbanks pushing toward poorer markets, as reflected in smaller average loans sizes and greater outreach to women. The evidence is particularly strong for microbanks relying on commercial-funding and using traditional bilateral lending contracts (rather than group lending methods favored by microfinance NGOs). We consider plausible alternative explanations for the correlations, including relationships that run through the nature of the regulatory environment and the structure of the banking environment, but we fail to find strong support for these alternative hypotheses.
KW - Banks
KW - Depository institutions
KW - Micro finance institutions
KW - Mortgages
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U2 - 10.1007/s10693-013-0177-z
DO - 10.1007/s10693-013-0177-z
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84904553588
SN - 0920-8550
VL - 46
SP - 1
EP - 53
JO - Journal of Financial Services Research
JF - Journal of Financial Services Research
IS - 1
ER -