Unlike other most other ASEAN countries which have a relatively mature microfinance sector, Myanmar’s microfinance and co-operative industry is in its infancy. In fact, microfinance was very much unregulated until late 2011 when the Microfinance Law was introduced for the first time by the Government.

From just a handful of microfinance companies (MFIs) a few years ago, the number of entrants to the microfinance sector has expanded exponentially. Today there are 166 registered organizations with microfinance activities, with a total of 1,989,743 customers and active loan outstanding of $247,304,100 as of July 2016.

UNCDF Myanmar has been fortunate to become deeply engaged in this sector. To date, UNCDF has provided seed capital to successfully launch two MFIs (Alliance and ASA) and one co-op (ACCU). In addition, UNCDF has built a close working relationship with the Financial Regulation Department (FRD) and providing extensive technical support in reviewing and drafting regulations.

As MFIs increasingly scale up and the client base expands, there is now a greater need more than ever for professional management and usage of the client and financial data. This will enable improved service delivery to existing customers as well as delivering new products while maintaining a social focus. To address this need, UNCDF Myanmar has begun a new initiative to provide technical support to Financial Service Providers (FSPs) in data usage.

In August 2016, UNCDF staff specializing in data analytics visited Alliance, a leading MFI in the Mandalay region to conduct a data assessment. UNCDF staff worked with Alliance to assess the Management Information System (MIS), address gaps in data quality, assess the portfolio risks, and finally extracted and segmented existing client data to identify potential areas in new product development with a particular focus on women empowerment. In September 2016, UNCDF visited ACCU (Association of Asian Confederation of Credit Unions) to undertake data assessment. Looking ahead, UNCDF Myanmar is very excited to work with FSPs to improve their service delivery to low-income households and strengthen their management and usage of client and financial data.

The potential for data support has wide implications and will leverage other projects that UNCDF is undertaking in Myanmar, such as the Market Development Facility (MDF) fund which will provide debt financing to microfinance companies.

For further information, please contact:

Paul Luchtenburg
paul.luchtenburg@uncdf.org