Firms have employed strategic alliances with other firms to effectively manage costs, overcome resource and technology constraints, and enhance competitive position. Strategic alliances can lead to productive institutional collaborations in rural financial markets, thereby expanding the array of...

The continuum of institutions providing microfinance cannot develop fully without a regulatory environment conducive to their growth. Without such an environment, fragmentation and segmentation will continue to inhibit the institutional transformation of microfinance institutions. The authors...

An earlier Policy Research Working Paper (Hennie van Greuning, Joselito Gallardo, and Bikki Randhawa,"A Framework for Regulating Microfinance Institutions,"WPS 2061, February 1999) presented a regulatory framework that identifies thresholds in financial intermediation activities that trigger a...

In most developing countries, capital markets are relatively undeveloped and banks are often unable or unwilling to undertake term lending. And banks prefer to lend to larger, established business with well-developed balance sheets and credit histories. Operations in microenterprises and small...