MABS member banks get recognition

Five participating banks (PBs) of the Microenterprise Access to Banking Services (MABS) program are among the Top 100 microfinance institutions (MFIs) all over the world in terms of outreach to voluntary microdepositors.

The MABS is a program supported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Rural Bankers Association of the Philippines (RBAP).

The recognition is based on rankings released by the Microfinance Information eXchange (MIX), the MIX Global 100: Rankings of Microfinance Institutions, which presents a view of global microfinance through rankings of top-performing institutions.

The five PBs are: Green Bank (rank: 23rd), Cantilan Bank (83th), First Macro Bank (93rd), Cooperative Bank of Misamis Oriental (97th), and Bangko Kabayan (98th) made it to the list of top microfinance institutions globally in terms of outreach to depositors.

The MIX Global 100 ranks microfinance institutions in seven different categories, as well as in an overall composite ranking. Composite rankings are based on a number of criteria and were developed in an effort to present the leading, most well-rounded and balanced high performing institutions.

The individual MIX Global 100 categories are: outreach (borrowers and depositors), scale, profitability, efficiency, productivity, and portfolio quality. The 2007 MIX Global 100 surveyed 820 MFIs which post their profiles on the MIXMarket, the web-based global microfinance information platform of the MIX.

The MIX — a Washington-based not-for-profit organization dedicated to increasing the availability of reliable, standardized and comparable data on the financial performance and outreach of microfinance institutions — has been working with the RBAP, the MABS, and the Microfinance Council of the Philippines (MCPI) since 2005. 

The partnership aims to improve the performance and growth of RBAP member banks and other MFIs in the Philippines by developing local and international performance benchmarks. It also hopes to strengthen RBAP’s role, and that of MCPI, as advocates for the adoption of appropriate performance standards for rural banks and other MFIs in the Philippines.

The rapid expansion of microfinance services being provided by MABS participating banks in the Philippines continues to grow.  The 90 MABS PBs increased both loans and deposit services to microenterprise clients in 2007. 

In 2007 alone, the banks disbursed more than 450,000 loans totaling more than P5 billion.  Since the program began 10 years ago, PBs provided more than 1.4 million microloans totaling more than P16 billion to more than 457,000 borrowers. 

The number of microdeposit accounts managed by MABS participating banks is also expanding with the banks now managing more than 1.2 million accounts with outstanding balances of P1.6 billion.