Tuesday, December 04, 2007

GRI Financial Services Sector Supplement - draft for public comment

The GRI invites you to comment on the Revised version of the GRI Financial Services Sector Supplement by January 10, 2008 . More here.

The draft supplement includes a new indicator, titled 'Monetary value of products and services designed to deliver a specific social benefit for each business line broken down by purpose' (Indicator #6). In the discription the document mentions 'microfinance' as an example of such products and services.

Another relevant new indicator is 'Access to financial services in low-populated or economically disadvantaged areas by type of access' (Indicator #9). In terms of microfinance this can be related to depth and breadth of outreach.

The problem seems that Microfinance Institutions are 'scoring' 100% at both indicators, which means that the indicators are not useful to compare different MFI's.
A further cross reference check with the Social Performance Taskforce Indicators will be presented soon after this.