RBS announces the winners for the 3rd Microfinance Process Excellence Awards 2008
Company Brief
New Delhi, November 12, 2008
The Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS), one of the world’s leading financial services companies and PlaNet Finance India, today jointly announced the winners for the 3rd Microfinance Process Excellence Awards 2008. This year’s awards celebrate the spirit of socio economic upliftment and poverty alleviation by empowering the entrepreneurial spirit in India’s poor. The Awards were launched in 2004 with the objective of promoting process excellence and process based management in micro credit institutions panning rural India.
This year, the MPEA drew enormous support from Micro Finance Institutions (MFIs) across India which resulted in over 67 nominations short listed after a stringent selection process. As before, in order to ensure parity and fairness during the selection process, the awards have been classified into three categories according to the size of competing MFIs – Flint, Flame and Fire.
According to Meera H Sanyal, Country Executive and jury panelist, “This year’s winners included self starting entrepreneurs who have come together to address the varied and wide gaps prevalent in the sector by being a part of the change process themselves. Through their dedicated efforts, they have reached out to further financial inclusion in remote areas of the country and have successfully empowered their customers to better socio economic conditions in rural India. The concept of the MPEA emerged in 2004, a time when the microfinance industry in the country was poised to grow but challenges within the systems and processes were prevalent. The success of our award winners stands testimony to the fulfillment of that objective.”
This year’s National Awardees included organisations such as: Nirantara Community Services, operating from the Bidar district of north Karnataka with plans to expand operations in underserved areas of Maharshtra in the next few years, Aarohan Financial Services Limited, which successfully demonstrated the ‘differentiation’ in MF industry operating out of a highly competitive region in Kolkata and Sanghamitra Rural Financial Services which represented a unique experiment in the microfinance sector with important lessons on how an intermediary organization can be structured, the impact it could have on the banking system, its own growth and sustainability.
This year’s Regional Flint Award Winners included Margdarshak, from Lucknow, an organization that has emerged from being a facilitator to a direct implementer, Ajagar Social Circle which worked extensively with rubber-plantation farmers in the remote parts of Goalpara district of Assam and Hindustan Microfinance Private Limited, from Mumbai, a unique MFI that continues the good work of its parent organisation recognised as being the first organised lender in the city.
The regional Flame Awards honored Sonata Finance Private Limited from the North, which created news by establishing a first of its kind ‘merger’ in the microfinance industry and Regional Rural Development Centre that works towards poverty alleviation in Orissa.
This year, the regional Fire Awards winners included: ASOMI one of the largest MFIs in Assam, Saadhana Microfin Society, from Kurnool, an organisation driven by innovative ideas and robust processes and Ujjivan Financial Services Private Limited in Bangalore that works on the fundamentals of combining the successful models in micro-finance (Grameen/SHG) with technologies and efficiencies of modern retail banking.
The Microfinance Process Excellence Awards are considered to be the pioneer in teaching a disciplined process in micro credit lending and in establishing industry benchmarks and elevating the standards of Process Management across MFIs in India. Unlike any other award, the MPEA is a 6 month long process culminating in the award ceremony. The process involves extensive training in Process Management and Process Mapping and is designed for MFIs to acquire or sharpen their skills in process mapping and optimization. These training sessions conducted by an international consultancy group, across the country, are the hallmark of MPEA.
The jury for this award comprised eminent representatives from the College of Agricultural Banking – RBI, CORDAID, DIA Vikas Capital, FWWB, IIM Ahmedabad, SADHAN, Unitus Equity Fund and RBS India.
For further informatin, please contact:
Head - Marketing & Communication
V Vasantha Kumar
Tel +91-124-418-1932
Genesis Burson-Marsteller
Poonam Kapila
E-mail:poonam.kapila@bm.com
Tel +91 98-117-93973
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