OneWorld.net (U.S.)

ABN AMRO Bank and PlaNet Finance India are pleased to announce the launch of the Microfinance Process Excellence Awards (MPEA) 2006 and invite all microfinance institutions in India to nominate and win. Announcing the opening of nominations for the Awards, Shivendra Sharma, Executive Director, PlaNet Finance India explains, “After the success of the first edition of the Awards in 2005 and taking lessons from them, the Awards process has been further strengthened to make it easier for smaller institutions to participate and win, and to ensure achievement of the Award objectives.”

One major enhancement this year is the introduction of regional awards. The country has been divided into five regions and three awards would be given to MFIs in each region making it a total of 15 regional awards that would be given. This has been done to encourage smaller institutions from regions where microfinance is still nascent, to be recognized for their pioneering efforts and to improve their professionalism. In addition to these Regional Awards 3 National Awards would also be given. Like last year the Awards would be in given in three categories Flint, Flame and Fire for small, medium and large institutions respectively.

"Microfinance's early successes in alleviating poverty, has fired the imagination of all stakeholders. But in order for MFIs to achieve any significant scale or outreach, they need to become strong and stable financial service providers. To make the grade, MFIs must institutionalise their processes first. The objective of the Awards, which have an in-built training and monitoring component, is precisely to catalyse this change" says Romesh Sobti, Country Representative, ABN AMRO Bank N.V., India

The training on Process Management and Process Mapping, which distinguishes the Microfinance Process Excellence Awards from other awards, has also been further improved to suit the needs of the participating institutions. The number of Institutions that will be provided such training has been increased to 45 this year from 21 last year and the training replication that the participants do after returning to their institutions would this year be monitored by the Awards Trainers. As a final scoring mechanism a second monitoring visit would be undertaken to the top scoring 23 institutions to assess the level of implementation of the reengineered process and gauge change awareness amongst the personnel of the microfinance institution.

"But for a grossly inadequate retail capacity, the estimated credit demand of INR 135,000 Crores could easily be met by the 20 odd banks willing to provide wholesale funds. Through these Awards which have an in-built training component, ABN AMRO aims to institutionalise processes that enhance the MFI's capacity to provide the last mile connectivity" says Moumita Sen Sarma, Vice President, Head - Microfinance India, ABN AMRO Bank N.V., India.

In addition, a Special Award for Continued Excellence has been instituted for the winners of MPEA 2005, for those to demonstrate continued commitment to the Awards objectives. In order to facilitate those institutions that have already been exposed to Process Management through other agencies or individual or institutional management consultants a special exemption from the training component has been introduced subject to the presentation of satisfactory evidence to support the claim for exemption.

Complete information about the Awards along with the Nomination forms has been made available on the Awards website and a special desk has been set up at the Awards Secretariat with the number +91 124 5061861/2/3 to answer queries and assist MFIs in understanding the Awards Process and in filling out the nomination forms. The last date for filing nominations is September 30, 2005.

Press Contacts: Pritam Patra for PlaNet Finance India () Maneesha Chadha for ABN AMRO Bank ()