Abstract

ABOUT THE TALK

Microfinance started out as an industry funded primarily by donor capital and aid money, but in the past couple of years it has attracted a lot of interest from private institutional and individual investors. These investors have been attracted by high financial returns in the microfinance industry, access to emerging markets assets, good portfolio quality of MFIs and low correlation with the rest of the economy. In this talk Priyanka Gupta will address why commercial capital is increasingly important in the microfinance sector, some recent examples of commercial funding in this sector, and recent debates on profit motive crowding out the social motive.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Priyanka Gupta is an Associate working in the Investment Banking Division of Morgan Stanley. She spent one year with Morgan Stanley’s Microfinance Institutions Group, working to establish the group’s strategy with regard to equity investments and advisory services for microfinance institutions. She was awarded the Willian Gates Cambridge Scholarship in 2002, and graduated in Economics from Cambridge University in 2005.