On 27/02 – 3/03/2017 the first country visit of MFC took place in Tirana, Albania. During the visit discussions were held with leading Albanian MFIs (AgroInvest, BESA Fund, Crimson Finance Fund, FedInvest NOA, UniFin), the development agency AIDA, and UNDP. The discussions revealed growing interest of microfinance institutions in serving more start-up enterprises recognizing their unique challenges and needs. The ...

This year, we continue exploring the conditions for business creation and the role of microfinance vis-a-vis start-ups. This year, we are teaming up with the European Microfinance Network (EMN) to carry out the project in 8 countries: Albania, Germany, Italy, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Spain and the UK. This project is implemented within the four-year Framework Partnership Agreement of MFC and ...

In early October, MFC staff visited Romania to meet with a range of stakeholders (including MFC members Vitas and GoodBee) to discuss how the microfinance sector currently supports start-up businesses, what challenges the sector faces in that work and the opportunities to expand that support in future. Among key issues and ideas we heard was the fact that 1) the ...

What are we talking about? Three microfinance institutions (MFIs), namely Adie in France, microStart in Belgium and Taysir in Tunisia launch together an online training facility addressed to future micro-entrepreneurs in September 2016. This free of charge e-learning instrument is composed of 9 short videos and over 40 tools & exercises, which guide future micro-entrepreneurs throughout the process of their ...

In a time of economic slow-down, the idea of financing start-up enterprises in the EU is quite alluring. As such, start-ups (enterprises in early stages of development, generally less than 2 years old) are high on European Commission’s agenda. For this reason, the MFC is taking a deep dive on how microfinance can support start-ups. We will examine existing practices ...