The Urban Organism – Cities as living beings
For the first time in the history of the world, more than half of the world’s population live in urban areas. In the next 13 years, a billion people are expected to migrate to cities, twice as fast as the rate just 30 years ago.
Indian Corporate Debt Markets – Risk and Hedging Related Issues (Part II)
In our previous post we discussed the development and current status of the Credit Default Swap (CDS) market in India.
Are microfinance repayments suffering in Tamil Nadu?
This post is in response to an article, “Loan Defaults Versus Over-indebtedness in Rural Tamil Nadu”, published on the CGAP blog on June 10th, 2013.
IFMR Rural Finance is now ISO Certified
IFMR Rural Finance is now an ISO 9001:2008 certified organisation. IFMR Rural Finance, an organisation with a mission of promoting high-quality Financial Institutions, has undergone the certification for the design work it carries out in various fields of finance.
Making Room for a Planet of Cities
In a report titled “Making Room for a Planet of Cities”, Shlomo Angel et al examine how the prevailing planning paradigm of containment, which is predicated on the containment of sprawl in cities, is unsuitable for rapidly urbanizing countries like India.
Pudhuaaru KGFS Turns Five
Five years ago on this day, we took a definitive step towards executing against our vision of delivering financial well-being for rural India with the first branch of Pudhuaaru KGFS going live in Karambayam village of Thanjavur district.
Inflation Indexed Bonds – Is it a good investment option in its current form?
In line with Budget announcement by Finance Minister in February, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) announced to issue INR 12,000 crore to INR 15,000 crore of inflation indexed bonds (IIB) on 4th of June of the current year (2013).
Indian Corporate Debt Markets – Risk and Hedging Related Issues (Part I)
One of the standard instruments used to hedge against risk in a corporate debt market is the credit default swap or CDS instrument. A CDS is a credit derivative contract between two counterparties.
IFMR Capital: Securitizing Microloans for Non-Bank Investors
Columbia Business School has developed a case study documenting the background and the story behind the launch of IFMR Trust Pioneer II, the first rated microfinance securitization transaction to be placed with the capital market investors.
Municipal Finance – Functionaries
Following the posts on Functions of ULBs and Municipal Funds as part of the Municipal Finance blog series, this post provides an overview of functionaries at ULBs, explains why the poor urban service delivery mechanism is rooted in weak staff capacity and disjointed institutional set-up and concludes with recommendations for strengthening capacity building.
