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Peter Sands, Standard Chartered: unlocking funding for microfinance |
As the private sector arm of the World Bank, the IFC is investing $45 million in the notes – a basic credit derivative with an embedded default swap, allowing the issuer to transfer credit risk to investors. The notes will be issued by Microfinance Institutional Loans for Asia and Africa, or MILAA, a special-purpose vehicle set up by Standard Chartered to facilitate microfinance lending.
Vibhuti Sharma, global head of development organizations at the London-headquartered lender, says it only offers microfinance loans in markets where it is either strategically strong – notably in Africa and Asia, two markets that provide most of...
