Banque Populaire Chair in microfinance

French banking group Banque Populaire and Audencia Nantes have founded a Banque Populaire chair which will conduct research into the economic and social role of co-operative banks, with a particular focus on microfinance.

The ongoing research programme will measure the optimum conditions for the success of microfinance schemes in both developing countries and industrialised nations.

The chair’s team of researchers and industry specialists, overseen by Audencia Professor Christophe Villa, has set itself the following objectives:

• To collate, analyse and evaluate the various techniques of modern microfinance
• To analyse these practices through both economic and sociological approaches
• To attempt to formulate concrete recommendations and to produce a statistical analysis of the risks involved.

This programme, negotiated for an initial period of three years, will benefit from a budget of 420,000 euros of which two-thirds will come from the Banque Populaire group. The chair’s first results are expected within a year.