摘要：As mainstream media and capital markets have
discovered microfinance in the last few years, they have
been witness to a transformative period in the industry.
At the retail level, microfinance has expanded rapidly
in many markets. Borrower outreach in young markets
in North Africa and South Asia has doubled in just a
couple years. Millions of new savings accounts have
opened in markets as dispersed as East Africa and South
America. New funding sources have helped propel this
wave of growth. Commercial and socially motivated
cross-border investments, coupled with active local
banking sectors, have become increasingly involved
with the microfinance sector. Commercial financing
sources on MFI balance sheets almost tripled in two
short years. And as investor comfort with microfinance
has increased, money has spilled over from regulated
markets in Latin America, the Balkans and Central
Asia into markets with no prudential supervision like
Morocco or low income countries like Cambodia. These
highlights draw out these and other trends in the
microfinance industry over the 2004–06 period.
