What services does the Development Finance Group at CHF International provide?
Elissa McCarter: We refer to our micro-lending activities as development finance to reflect the broad range of business models and products that we provide. We serve the very typical small microfinance borrower (average loan size of USD 1000 to USD 2000 dollars) up to what we consider to be the missing middle market — where banks have been slow to step in. Our middle market portfolio, in terms of loan sizes, ranges from USD 200,000 dollars, all the way up to USD 5 million in some places. Housing has always been one of the niche areas we have worked in, since the 1970s when we pioneered some of the first housing microfinance programs. MC: CHFs has stated that its international lending activities are successful because of the firm’s approach to “development finance” that is demand-driven. Can you elaborate? Elissa McCarter: I think any successful development project including setting up a microfinance institution has to be based on really good market research to define the customers or t
