Micro Sharks: Microcredit related suicides in India.

A case study.

By,
Anand
Faculty Member (Finance) & research scholar,
IBS Hyderabad (ICFAI University).
Email – anandicfai@yahoo.com

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―IT is the big moment. Couldn't be bigger,‖ said Matthew Titus, of Sa-Dhan, an association of Indian
microcredit lenders, of the outlook for his members. He was not alone in seeing microcredit—the
lending of tiny amounts of money to people with even tinier assets—at the point of take-off in India
(Exhibit 1). A new report from the central bank, the Reserve Bank of India, tackled some of the
regulatory issues involved in expanding credit ―at the bottom of the pyramid.‖ It argued, not just that
microcredit helps the poor, but it also allows banks to ―increase their business, enhance their profit and
spread their risk.‖

Microcredit was already a flourishing business working through ―Self-Help Groups‖ (SHGs). These,
supported by banks, notably the government's National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development
(NABARD), typically brought together about 15 women, who pooled their savings for a few months,
allocated them to members who needed small amounts temporarily, and were then eligible for a bank
loan. The numbers of SHGs were expanding quickly especially after 2005 central government budget
support to this sector. In his budget speech in February, 2005, the finance minister, Dr. Palaniappan
Chidambaram, promised to promote microfinance institutions (MFIs), ―in a big way‖, and to help them
to act as intermediaries between banks and borrowers. He doubled, to 2 billion rupees, a fund devoted
to provide the MFIs with capital which was meant to help, for example, organise SHGs. He promised
new legislation that would give them an official status and a clear regulatory framework. He also
allowed them for the first time to borrow money from abroad.

With all these happenings, there seemed to be celebration times for all Micro Finance Institutions
(MFI‘s), especially for those operating in the rural parts of Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. A typical
example of this was Udai Kumar‘s SHARE (Society for Helping Awakening Rural Poor through
Education), a private sector MFI without government support, which was also having the fare share of
this dream run. Everything was going right and almost all the firms were on a path of rapid growth and
expansion, projecting very bright prospect for this business. Therefore, quite naturally, going by the
projections, the common path adopted by almost all the MFI‘s came in the form of putting more and
more effort in strategic planning. For future growth, in a market where new and big players are
showing their increasing interest, it indeed appeared logical.

And then suddenly occurred the unfortunate shocking incidence, touching each part of the society, and
exposing yesterdays‘ hero, MFI‘s, as an undercover villain, threatening the very survival of the whole
industry. The rosy picture turned gloomy and every player was now trying to defend its ground under a
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spate of allegations from all sections, making MFI‘s almost completely responsible for the sad
incidence.

The incidence

It all erupted with the tragic suicides by more than 60 self-help group members in Andhra Pradesh
during April, 2006.

Although the initial impact of these deaths was subsumed under the unending spate of farmer suicides
in the Vidharba region of Maharashtra but the hidden dimension of micro-credit revolution in the
country only begun to surface.

Reports indicate that the actual number of suicides may exceed 200 in the SHG-saturated districts of
Krishna, East Godavari, Guntur and Prakasam where intimidation of families by the Micro-Finance
Institutions (MFI) against reporting the matter to police had surfaced.

Reacting to what followed as protests staged by mourners and enraged borrowers, the district
authorities closed down 50 branches of two major microfinance institutions in the state. Further, in
March 2006, a top government official in Krishna district, seized and destroyed records of temporarily
shut down 50 branch offices of four MFIs, including that of SHARE, and told their borrowers not to
repay their loans.

The prima-facie MFIs were charged with exploiting the poor with 'usurious interest rate' and
intimidating the borrowers by ―forced loan recovery‖ practices, combined effect of which drove debt-
ridden poor to embrace death.

An anguished Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh Dr. Y S Rajasekhara Reddy lashed out saying that
―MFIs were turning out to be worse than moneylenders by charging interest rates in excess of 20
percent.‖ These gave rise to the fear that the state government will try to regulate the lenders, perhaps
by capping interest rates at levels that could put them out of business.

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As the government began in-depth enquiry into suicide deaths and the MFIs launched themselves into
damage control measures, many affected families were left wondering if the government had not
played ignorant to the modus operandi of MFIs.

MFI’s Argument

The lenders say they are being defamed, in a row that raises questions about their future in the state.

Given the fact that the commercial banking system has little regard to the bottom-of-the-pyramid group
as being creditworthy, the MFIs have enjoyed primary position in this area. Taking shelter behind
these facts, the MFIs have requested the government not to pursue the matter further as it was
detrimental to the interests of the poor. Also, having been in the business of creating self-help groups
and promoting micro-credit institutions, the government cannot absolve itself from being in the thick
of the fatal crises.

On a different plane, proponents of the market forces always argue in favor of profit driven idea of
MFI‘s, saying that, it is fundamental to wealth creation in the rural areas on a sustainable basis. And if
used otherwise, micro credit will only create a charity mechanism and will not enable and empower
poor.

In many ways, micro-credit justifies the ongoing processes of decentralization too. As poor take
control of their destiny through soft loans, it becomes convenient for the government and the
commercial banks to absolve themselves of their primary responsibility towards the poor. As Kumar
claims success on this front by insisting that, ―about 50% of ‗them‘ are out of poverty….‖

Udaia Kumar, says that, in fact, its loans cost about 21.5% a year—not excessive, since its cost of
funds is 11% a year, the administration of a portfolio of more than 800,000 small loans in Andhra
Pradesh is expensive, and not all loans are repaid (Exhibit 3, 4 and 5). It is also less than half the rate a
moneylender would charge or what a poor borrower would end up paying for a bank loan in view of
corruption.

Even then, Mr Kumar says, that SHARE's own average outstanding loan was only 4,000 rupees and
SHARE has since agreed to cut its rates by about four percentage points.
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The success factors behind the high recovery rate of SHARE, as Udai Kumar puts out, was the
understanding which ―…made it very clear that in order to be in business we need to have high
repayment rates. And since we are not a grant driven program we have to see that we build up
efficiency and see that the repayment rates are very high. Now, what contributes to high repayment
rates? Number one, committed staff members, good training, the delivery mechanism which will give
money and collect money without any leakages. So, these are all important in order to see that the
repayment rates are very high. And our MIS – Management information systems – also is considered
to be one of the best in the word.‖

The Problem

Easy credit in rural areas, indeed, brought about significant turnaround in lifestyle, however, at least in
some instances, at the cost of plunging poor households under debt. As poverty gets directly co-related
with reduced cash flow, providing easy credit through host of lending institutions created an illusion of
―feel good‖ amongst the rural poor. There were a number of cases which suggested that a large
proportion of micro-credit clients were worse off after accessing loans. Since higher interest rates on
micro-credit did not provide scope for savings as also for investing, the dominant risk-covering factors
for the poor, micro-credit seldom propelled poor out of poverty. Further, there were no businesses that
could have generated any profit after paying an interest of 24-36 per cent on capital invested, which
was the usual cost of financing through micro credit.

To add to this problem, as some news reports suggested (Sharma, Sudhirendar Micro credit becomes
death-trap: The New Nation; Tue, 22 Aug 2006, 09:01:00), private MFI‘s usually paid very little
attention to the core concerns of the poor. For them the critical concern was to sustain and grow
services against emerging odds in a full of opportunity environment. Viswanatha Prasad of Bellwether,
a fund that finances microcredit-providers, blames ―indiscriminate expansion‖ for this tragedy.

On the rate of financing front, almost all the private players were restricted by their cost of funds and
operating costs, which pushed the overall cost of financing so high so, it no longer remained a
productive proposition in most of the cases. Even though the diversified source of fund, operational
efficiency, and a good track record helped SHARE reduce its cost of borrowing and financing (exhibit
4), it was still not favorable for any productivity based enabling initiative earning a moderate return.

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To add to this, realizing that MFI‘s can serve as a good vehicle for penetrating rural population, the
commercial banks flushed them with fund in order to push their agenda of acquiring hold of rural
market, diversifying risk and serving rural economy. Consequently, far from helping people in
generating wealth, easy credit was being used to encourage ―primary producers‖ at the farm level, to
become ―distributors and consumers‖ of consumer products and durables. Howsoever, this
―commercial initiative‖ ignored the possible severe implications, which could have adverse impact on
the livelihood security, financial vulnerability, and ultimately, on the very lives of poor people.

Further, the profit maximizing mindset resulted in a rampant distribution of loans without
understanding the feasibility of the purpose. The problem was aggravated due to the aggressive
competition and failure to share information among MFI‘s about creditworthiness of a borrower, which
meant some people were in hooks to numerous lenders (Exhibit 2).

As a result, when the farmers were not able to pay their dues, these companies allegedly used different
kinds of unethical and illegal approaches to get the dues back. As reported in almost all the major news
mediums, the brewing crisis in Andhra Pradesh not only exposed the unreasonable practices by MFIs
but it also raised serious questions about the regulatory measures available and applicable to them.

Another allegation was that some microcredit lenders were charging interest rates on the full amount of
a loan, rather than the declining balance. Fortunately for Udai Kumar‘s SHARE, they were not in the
thick on this front as they were charging a flat rate per annum (Exhibit 5).

The root of the dispute, as Mr. Kumar says, is competition between non-governmental MFIs and a
subsidised microcredit scheme, financed by the state and central governments and the World Bank.
According to the bank, some 30% of SHARE's clients overlap with government-supported ―self-help
groups‖. And this gives another dimension to the problem, as described above, the information about a
borrower is not shared among different micro finance institutions, which, in turn, results into a
borrower taking multiple loans, (loans from different MFI‘s) far exceeding his credit bearing and
servicing capabilities (Exhibit 2). This overlap is especially serious as the government supported
initiatives are generally finance at comparatively low rates and may not have the profit considerations
while the private MFI‘s bank on the productive utilization of their funding and require a very high
interest. Also a project which may look profitable if financed by government aided MFI‘s may not
remain so if financed through private MFI route.
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Mathew Titus of Sa-Dhan, sees the row as a ―battle of ideas‖—between the non-government sector and
those ideologically opposed to its working with the poor.

Future Ahead

Now as the problems of MFI‘s are surfacing and a question mark has been put at the very justification
of the MFI‘s operations, at least in its current form, all the MFI heads including SHARE‘s Udai
Kumar, wonder what exactly went wrong? Were they always heading for this disaster, looking back at
the modus operandi they followed? Could it have been avoided? If so, then, how? And the million
dollar question about how to revive its image and business back, given that the damage has been done?
Also, what initiatives to take to avoid any such happening in the future, given its financing and
operational limitations?

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Exhibit 1
Microfinance in India
The story of the Indian microfinance is associated with both governmental and NGO initiatives that
took place in the mid-Eighties and early Nineties. It incorporated lessons from the microfinance
movement in Bangladesh and similar participatory development programmes in India. The Self Help
Group (SHG) -bank linkage programme of the NABARD accelerated the growth in the latter half of
the Nineties. Now the SHG-bank linkage programme is one of the largest microfinance programmes in
the world with 10.79 lakh SHGs covering nearly 167 lakh poor families till March 31, 2004.

As anywhere in the world, a sample analysis of MFIs has concluded that nearly 78 per cent of the
membership of MFIs is rural and almost 95 per cent of the members are women, the categories that
have previously been underserved.

Microfinance has enabled the poor to have a greater access to financial services, particularly credit. It
has achieved several social development objectives like gender sensitisation, empowerment and
poverty alleviation by diversifying their livelihoods and especially contributed largely towards raising
their incomes. It has also allowed the poor to accumulate assets and has contributed towards their
security. In areas with sound microfinance programmes, the quality of life of the poor has improved
significantly.

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Exhibit 2
Multiple borrowings from different MFI‘s due to lack lending information sharing;

Leander I Leander II

Multiple
Lending

Borrower Lack of
information
sharing

Leander III Leander IV

Exhibit 3
SHARE Microfin Limited (SML)
Established as a non-profit society in 1989 by Udaia Kumar, SHARE transformed itself into a public
limited company SHARE Microfin Limited (SML) in 1999, partially due to some tax consideration.
With an outstanding loan portfolio of USD 37.3 million (as on February 28, 2005), SML was the
largest microfinance organization in India in terms of size of the loan portfolio. It was also ranked 30th
in 2005 MIX (The global information exchange for the microfinance industry:
http://www.mixmarket.org/) Global top 100 on the basis of total gross loan portfolio. It fared even
better in the ranking on the basis of number of borrowers per staff where it stood on 14 position
Further, it was ranked 4th in the ranking of the ―Biggest gains in borrowers served in South Asia‖ in a
MIX survey (Stephens, Blaine and Tazi, Hind ; 2006, pp.24). The organization had around 0.4 million
members who had availed of microfinance services. As on March 31, 2004, women members owned
over 98.4% of the equity of the company, making it a truly community-owned organization. SHARE
essentially used adapted version of the Grameen model. It sustained its growth momentum over the
years, through innovative fund mobilization efforts using partnership models with private sector banks
and structured deals like securitization. The organization also planned to source cheaper funds through
bond issues and external commercial borrowings. The success of SML attracted funding from venture
capitalists and commercial banks in the microfinance sector.

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Exhibit 4
SHARE (SHARE Microfin Ltd.)
GENERAL INSTITUTIONAL INFORMATION AND LEGAL DATA
Name of MFI SHARE Microfin Ltd.
Region South Asia
Established in (year) 1992
Current legal status Non-Bank Financial Institution
Regulated Yes
Institution's Mission SHARE's mission is the reduction of poverty by providing financial & support services to the poor, particularly women
for viable productive income generation enterprises enabling them to use their skills and reduce their poverty
Background and Main Challenges SHARE (Society for Helping, Awakening Rural poor through Education) is a Micro Finance Institution registerd under
the Societies Act as a Service Organization in the year 1989. Then transformed into 'SHARE Microfin Limited', a Non
Banking Financial Institution since 2000. SHARE's operations are mostly in the rural areas of Andhra Pradesh and in
Chhattisgarh and Karnataka.
Products SHARE extends small loans to poor people for self-employment projects that generate income, allowing them to care
for themselves and their families. It focuses essentially on women as clients of micro credit to ensure that the
benefits of increased income accrue to the general welfare of the family, and particularly the children.
 Loans
 Training and Consulting
Percentage of operations comprised by microfinance 91-100%
Other services provided Business Development Services
Main Funding Sources  Loans
 Shareholder capital
Largest funder Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI)
INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITIES
Looking for  Equity investments
 Loans in US$
 Loans in local currency

OUTREACH & IMPACT

OUTREACH
31/03/06 31/03/05 31/03/04 31/03/03 31/03/02 31/03/01 31/03/00 31/03/99 31/03/98 31/03/97 31/03/96
INDICATORS
Outreach Indicators
Number of
Personnel 2,456 2,006 1,004 906 688 267 273 140 129 40 28

Loan
Number of Active
Borrowers 814,156 368,996 197,722 132,084 85,644 48,868 30,629 14,155 7,637 2,155 1,185

Avg Loan Bal. per

Borrower (US$) 101 109 96 79 68 72 78 73 78 107 57

Loans< $300 (%) n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a 100.00% 100.00% 100.00% 100.00% 100.00% 100.00%

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 Woman
Borrowers (%) 100.00% 100.00% 100.00% 100.00% 100.00% 100.00% 100.00% 100.00% 100.00% 100.00% 100.00%

Avg Loan Bal.per

Borrower/ GNI per n/a n/a 15.42% 14.85% 14.41% 15.67% 17.43% 16.63% 18.60% 25.38% 13.85%
Capita-%
Saving
Number of Savers 0 0 0 0 n/a 0 0 17,910 9,130 3,875 1,495
Avg Savings Bal.
n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a 7 6 4 4
per Saver (US$)
Avg Savings Bal.
per Saver/ GNI per n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a 1.65% 1.47% 0.86% 0.90%
Capita (%)
Targeting as of 31/03/2002
Does the institution specifically target very poor clients (clients earning less
Yes
than US$1/day or population in the bottom half living under the poverty line)?
Description (if Yes) Villages with a high concentration of low caste people.
Does the institution use any targeting tools such as Means Test, Participatory
Yes
Wealth Ranking, Housing Index, etc...?
Means Test designed by Cashpor with the following eligibility criteria: 1) total assets <
Description (if Yes)
USD 430; 2) per capita income < USD 7-8 per month; 3) dry land holding < 2 acres.

FINANCIAL INFORMATION IN US$

31/03/06 31/03/05 31/03/04 31/03/03 31/03/02 31/03/01 31/03/00 31/03/99 31/03/98 31/03/97 31/03/96
Exchange Rate used for 44.615 43.73 43.35 47.506 48.733 46.577 43.573 42.427 39.494 35.92 34.165
Conversion INR/USD INR/USD INR/USD INR/USD INR/USD INR/USD INR/USD INR/USD INR/USD INR/USD INR/USD

Balance Sheet

Gross Loan Portfolio (in

82,083,949 40,199,815 18,902,622 10,398,279 5,799,022 3,522,218 2,401,976 1,036,040 596,447 229,732 67,275
US$)
Total Assets (in US$) 97,084,778 44,741,370 23,294,920 12,042,284 7,296,359 4,232,016 3,339,822 1,679,677 1,032,530 312,579 114,957
Savings (in US$) 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 129,989 56,470 13,954 5,516
Total Equity (in US$) 7,254,145 5,192,484 3,509,186 1,387,974 1,167,471 1,139,434 1,425,884 1,015,539 656,708 (13,413) (12,353)
Financing Structure

Capital / Asset Ratio 7.47% 11.61% 15.06% 11.53% 16.00% 26.92% 42.69% 60.46% 63.60% n/a n/a
Debt / Equity Ratio 1,238.34% 739.64% 563.83% 767.62% 524.97% 271.41% 134.23% 65.40% 57.23% n/a n/a
Deposits to Loans 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 12.55% 9.47% 6.07% 8.20%
Deposits to Total Assets 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 7.74% 5.47% 4.46% 4.80%
G. Loan Portfolio/Total Asset 84.55% 89.85% 81.14% 86.35% 79.48% 83.23% 71.92% 61.68% 57.77% 73.50% 58.52%

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Overall Financial Performance

Return on Assets (%) 2.23% 3.15% 3.17% 1.21% 0.89% 1.13% -0.54% -2.94% -12.78% -19.52% n/a
Return on Equity (%) 25.45% 24.62% 22.88% 9.18% 4.46% 3.35% -1.10% -4.77% -26.73% 323.91% n/a
Operational Self-Sufficiency
(%) 119.51% 120.03% 118.16% 107.02% 103.99% 108.82% 97.52% 87.26% 55.58% 51.07% 26.54%

Revenues

Financial Revenue Ratio (%) 27.91% 29.77% 32.25% 30.61% 30.24% 16.47% 21.06% 20.13% 16.00% 20.38% n/a
Profit Margin (%) 16.33% 16.69% 15.37% 6.56% 3.83% 8.11% -2.55% -14.60% -79.91% -95.80% -276.79%
Expenses

Total Expense Ratio (%) 23.35% 24.80% 27.30% 28.60% 29.08% 15.13% 21.59% 23.07% 28.78% 39.90% n/a
Financial Expense Ratio (%) 6.51% 10.59% 11.25% 11.62% 10.95% 2.67% 3.98% 1.97% 3.04% 9.65% n/a
Loan Loss Provision Expense
3.87% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% n/a n/a 0.24% 1.34% 1.43% 0.00% n/a
Ratio (%)
Operating Expense Ratio (%) 12.96% 14.21% 16.05% 16.98% 18.66% 12.65% 17.37% 19.77% 24.31% 30.25% n/a
Efficiency
Operating Expense / Loan
Portfolio (%) 15.04% 16.36% 19.35% 20.28% 23.08% 16.16% 25.37% 32.84% 39.59% 43.54% n/a

Cost per Borrower 15.5 17.1 17.2 15.1 16.0 12.0 19.5 24.6 33.4 38.7 n/a
Productivity

Borrowers per Staff member 331 184 197 146 124 183 112 101 59 54 42
Savers per Staff member 0 0 0 0 n/a 0 0 128 71 97 53
Risk
Portfolio at Risk > 30 days
Ratio (%) 13.48% 0.19% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a

Loan Loss Reserve Ratio (%) 1.70% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.90% 1.05% 2.62% 1.62% n/a n/a
Risk Coverage Ratio (%) 12.64% 0.00% n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a
Write Off Ratio (%) 2.20% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a

All ratios are calculated from US dollar conversion of local currency financial information. As a different exchange rate is applied to each end of year data set,
the resulting ratio can differ from those calculated from the local currency financial information.

Source: http://www.mixmarket.org/

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Exhibit 5
Financial pattern of Share
Share‘s sources of fund and funding mechanism as depicted in ―Micro – Finance rating – Risk Assessment‖ (MIX; study period17-24 May,
2002; pp.7) report done by M-CRIL in which it was rated as alpha (highly recommended, high safety, good systems)

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Financial overview

14
Projected Cash Flows and Financial Statements for five years

1. Basic Trend Assumptions

2. Key Projected Performance Ratios

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3. Projected Balance Sheet

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4. Projected Income Statement

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5. Projected cash Flow Statements

All Sources in exhibit 5: ―Micro – Finance rating – Risk Assessment‖ (MIX; study period17-24 May, 2002) report done by M-CRIL
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Some cost of fund reduction initiatives, and funding issues
Microcredit is a time-consuming business, where it is hard to achieve a big increase in market size
without a commensurate increase in costs. Some see the solution in technology. Vishnu Dusad, boss of
Nucleus Software, one of India's leading suppliers of retail-banking systems, says he hopes to bring
down the cost of lending so that loans of 100 rupees will be feasible.

Nucleus is working with an MFI start-up, Ujjivan, whose initial intended market will be the poor of
Bangalore, India's information-technology hub. Ujjivan's Samit Ghosh aims to cut operating costs from
the MFIs' typical 95% of income to 70% or less.

Many agree that adapting commercial-banking systems to MFIs might allow them to cater for more
customers, raise efficiency and cut back-office costs. But the real challenges are at the front end, in the
villages themselves. Ajay Tankha, a Delhi-based microfinance consultant, says that there is already
evidence that some SHGs are overstretched. Microcredit, he says, can ruin as well as rescue the poor,
if not enough is done to help and advise the borrower. And in that area, computer programmes remain
a poor second-best.

Exhibit 6
Fund cost control- A case of Sri Lankan MFI‘s
To control the cost of financing in Sri Lanka, the government and foreign donors have been lending at
a concessional rate of just 3% a year to banks and microfinance institutions, which in turn lend it at
6%. In this way for any lender wanting to help, there has a little choice but to match the existing
subsidies.

Alessandro Pio, in Sri Lanka for the Asian Development Bank, which has helped finance this,
concedes it is not a perfect solution. It is, though, a good way of reaching the fishermen, stall-holders
and others who need small business loans.

But this system has two major problems in the long run. First, it is hard for a subsidized lender to
revert back to lending on commercial terms; and second, because the banks and microfinance
institutions are taking all the credit risk, most of the money flows to known customers.

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dhan.org/

Starting over; Dec 14th 2005; Delhi; the Economist print edition

Stephens, Blaine; Performance and transparency: A survey of microfinance in South Asia; Tazi, Hind;
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