Marginal Revolution draws attention to a WSJ article that appears to indicate an increase in traditional money lenders even in areas with heavy concentration of microfinance activity.
The RBI has reported that the number of registered traditional moneylenders increased 56% to 19,627 from 12,601 between 1995 and 2006. Another survey has estimated that the traditional moneylenders' share of total rural Indian household debt grew to 29.6% from 17.5% since the nineties when microfinance movement took-off.
Interestingly, WSJ sees moneylenders and microloans as complementing each other, in so far as SHG members may be drawing on moneylenders to help them keep their repayment deadlines and avoid the very powerful peer embarassment. The argue that since moneylenders may actually be helping SHG members repay their microloans in time, atleast some of the MFIs may have been bankrolled by moneylenders themselves. In this paradigm, moneylenders and MFI are some form of complementary services! Econ 101 defines two goods or services as complementary when they are bought and used together, the demand for one mirrors that for the other and vice-versa.
Speculating about the growth of moneylenders, as evidenced in the aforementioned figures, there are a few silver-linings -
1. It is possible that the proliferation of MFIs has forced moneylenders out into the open and made them register their activities. In other words, the growth of MFIs has generated a positive externality - competitive pressure on moneylenders to become more efficient (and thereby access formal sources of funding mechanisms) and transparent. Further, to the extent that older moneylenders are now getting themselves registered, the true numbers of newly enterant moneylenders may be exaggerated.
2. Even assuming that the numbers of moneylenders have been increasing, it may only underline the severe credit stress faced in rural India. One indication of this is the fact that official figures show the rate of banking credit and deposit growth as being much higher in villages than cities. A recent article in Businessline estimated the appetite for microfinance at about Rs 1.30-lakh crore a year, whereas microfinance disbursements were about Rs 28,000 crore in 2008-09.
In other words, thanks to the increasing penetration of economic growth into villages, the rural credit demand may be rising at a rate faster than what both the banks and MFIs are able to meet. And moneylenders may be only stepping in to fill in the vacuum. So we should be having more aggressive outreach of microfinance. It is also one of the most important arguements in favor of banking access and strategies like Total FInancial Inclusion (TFI).
2 comments:
The money-lenders are acting as a built-in depressors of the rural economy. The exorbitant interest rates charged has thrown the poor people into the death trap.
It is high time for a integrated, holistic and decentralized institutional arrangement for rural credit to shore-up our starving rural economy.
harish,
agree with all ur opinions. but the reality is that poor people need credit, the formal credit delivery channels are inadequate (both in depth and reach), and in the absence of credit these people are even more worse off. The moneylenders only address this deficiency and in the absence of adequate competition and regulation, make handsome profits.
Regulation, atleast its enforcement, is difficult for many reasons. So competition helps, and here microfinance movement can be of use.
But a TFI initiative would be the most far-reaching intervention to take credit markets to the bottom of the pyramid. Starting with simple access to formal banking facilities would put in place the enabling environment for the poor to access the market and available opportunities.
Further, I am sure that in many areas, the average interest rates charged by moneylenders would have come done on the face of competition from MFIs.
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