Microfinance growing despite fewer players

Microfinance (MF) has become an integral component of widening access to finance among poor and low-income households, and although the number of banks and clients in the sector fell in 2013, loans and deposit portfolios have increased, the central bank said.

In its 2013 Report on the State of Financial Inclusion in the Philippines, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said there is now a wide range of products such as microfinance loans, micro-agricultural loans, microfinance housing loans, micro-deposits and microinsurance that are available to a previously unbanked market.