An Interview with Daniel Rozas and Anna Kanze

Initial public offerings have been a controversial topic in microfinance ever since the industry's early days, and rightly so. The IPOs of Compartamos in Mexico and SKS Microfinance in India showed that microfinance could be highly profitable for investors, but also sparked hyper commercialization and debt crises that rocked the sector, harming its clients and tarnishing its public image. But last year, two Indian MFIs, Equitas Holdings and Ujjivan Financial Services, had successful IPOs that garnered a very different reception. How did these offerings differ from SKS and Compartamos, and what does their success imply for future investment in microfinance? Daniel Rozas of the European Microfinance Platform and Anna Kanze of Grassroots Capital Management discuss these topics and more in NextBillion's latest podcast