Kolkata: The Association of Microfinance Institutions – West Bengal (AMFI-WB) announced the successful conclusion of the 7th Edition of Eastern India Microfinance Summit 2023 organised in Association with PwC, MFIN and Sa-Dhan.
The theme of this year’s summit was ‘The Next Gen Microfinance – Role of Digital Technology in the evolving roadmap of Microfinance’. The summit saw participation from MFI practitioners, regulators and funders who deliberated on most pertinent issues facing the sector.
The summit also brought together national and global community of stakeholders, particularly lenders and Investors, discussing the current and future aspects of financial inclusion, and how digital aspect can be integrated in a client friendly manner.
Sudatta Mandal, DMD, SIDBI; Alok Mishra, CEO & Director, MFIN; Jiji Mammen, ED, Sa-Dhan; Chandra Shekhar Ghosh, MD, Bandhan Bank; Mohammad Awal, ED, Credit and Development Forum, Bangladesh; Ajit Kumar Maity, Chairperson, AMFI-WB; Kuldip Maity, MD & CEO, VFS Capital; Manoj Nambiar, MD, Arohan Financial Services, along with other stalwarts from the industry were present on the occasion.
“The industry has witnessed a robust rebound post COVID in 2022-23 with demand and loan disbursements picking up. The growth is likely to continue because of the conducive policy, demand and network expansion by firms to cater to more needy borrowers. Besides, the new regulatory framework will further strengthen the sector and is expected to bring traction and flow in the steady demand and asset quality improvement,” Kuldip Maity, MD & CEO of VFS Capital said.
The 7th Eastern Indian Microfinance Summit was organized to re-evaluate the strategic roadmap necessary for the microfinance industry to build products taking advantage of digital tools and technologies to serve their clients in a robust and client friendly manner.
Commenting on the role of Digital Technology in the roadmap of Microfinance, he cited, “Digitalization is helping MFIs to reach the left-out segment with financial products that means higher financial and increased benefits for them. However, in our industry, our relationship with the borrowers is our collateral. Thus, we shall continue to follow the touch model alongside tech model.”
The recent RBI-released guidelines for the microfinance industry have unleashed the competitive forces in the industry pinning greater responsibility on Boards of individual companies and SRO and the sector is well placed to take advantage of these regulations in reaching out to the vast underserved market and unserved market.
