Where Are They Now? Following the Progress of Seven Deposit-Taking Institutions From 1996-2003
This note is a follow up study done after seven years on seven leading small balance savings institutions that GTZ had previously studied in 1996 as part of the CGAP Working Group on Savings Mobilization. The goal of this study was to examine the progress of the seven institutions from 1996 to 2003 and compare them on standard measures of financial and social performance, as well as to find trends and issues common across the institutions over the seven years. The note also analyzes the drivers for this performance.
The seven institutions studied in 1996 were:
- BAAC (Thailand);
- BRI - Microbanking Division (formerly known as the Unit Desa System, Indonesia);
- BCS (Colombia);
- Centenary (Uganda);
- CVECA (Mali);
- FECECAM (Benin);
- RPB (now One Network Bank (ONB) in the Philippines).
The paper notes that the greatest challenges faced by this follow-up study were the inconsistency in the definitions and in the categories of data used, use of highly imprecise indicators used within institutions, and calculation of efficiency indicators that changed over time. It suggests that the study could have been more detailed about the performance of these institutions if the data collected had been more robust.
