B. Designing adequate microfinance products and services
Outreach of Micro Finance Services
How to increase outreach in a cost effective way, especially in remote rural areas? (e.g. have loan officers visit villages to publicise loan products in village meetings).
In their efforts to increase expansion into rural areas at a lower cost, a number of MFIs have introduced innovative delivery methods in order to do so. Constanta, Georgia, has recently set up Service Points, that is part-time offices located in rural areas. These are typically rented locations (within a partner branch) staffed two days a week by a loan officer and a part-time supervisor, and closely linked to the closest Constanta branch office. The advantage of the service points is their very low operating cost and good operational self-sufficiency.
Demos, Croatia, has also developed a number of traditional and more innovative methods such as: posting and/or distributing leaflets, door-to-door promotion, liaising with village leaders to organize orientation sessions and the "Client of the year" feature, i.e. a reward for the client who helps identify the highest number of new clients. In addition to that, Demos makes sure that the loan officers managing a particular community actually come from that same community.
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