In this article, Daria Lyubchenko and I look back at the time when we worked for the EBRD small business lending projects. Russian banks were only starting to work with small businesses and “high interest rate” seemed to be the main stopper for potential borrowers. Today, doing research for a project in Central Asia, I hear similar concerns from entrepreneurs and can only repeat what we used to say to our clients twenty years ago: interest rate is not the main thing when one talks about small and micro loans. In the growing markets, banks should learn to work with small businesses, examine their numbers and listen to the voices of their owners. When a “meeting of minds” takes place, both banks and businesses benefit.
Dreams of Casablanca and the Ten Commandments of the Lender
In 2019, I was lucky enough to go several times to Morocco, for work. The last trip was in December, which in Casablanca feels like May in Moscow. Morocco is...
Banker To The Poor
On the photo: "$100 loan. Can one earn anything, lending to the poor?" In 2008, my daughter, a student journalist at the time, was looking for professional experience and wanted...
Coronovirus marketing of banks and other mills on a stomy river
March 2020 Russian banks have launched special products and promotions, which play with words “coronavirus”. But not all of them. "Raiffeisen: "We don't see the need to create products focused...
February 18th, 2020. Interview with Nadia who owns and runs a hat manufacturing business.
She came to a bank branch where I was responsible for development of small business lending and represented the EBRD Russia Small Business Fund, in June 1998. The company was founded by two graduates of the Textile Institute and made women’s hats for autumn and winter.
The little guy’s truth
Complaint Management, Financial Ombudsman Financial Ombudsman, Moscow, 2010 In autumn 2010, Pavel Gurin, Chairman of the Management Board of Raiffeisenbank, supported the initiative of the Association of Russian Banks to...
