For the good of the country, John McCain has announced that he is suspending his campaign for president. I applaud this decision, which is certainly in the country's best interests. It is probably too late to actually remove his name from the ballot, but hopefully his supporters will get the message and suspend their plans to vote for him.

It's nice to see that we are finally all agreed on the best way to protect America from certain disaster.

Here's a test of a Google map that shows upcoming public appearances by the U.S. presidential candidates:

This is a test of embedding a customized Google Map on a page using Google's My Maps:

Roger Frank, partner, Developing World Markets

"Human impact capital. ... The yield on this is 600 basis points plus 200 basis points of human capital."

Preval Shah, President, Kiva

Kiva is an internet marketplace for MFIs such as Pro Mujer. Today Kiva is a really bad investment or a really great donation, depending on how you want to look at it. Kiva in the future would be something where you could get a risk-adjusted financial return.

Eric Josephson, head of international development, ECLOF Peru

The Ecumenical Church Loan Fund has a loan fund aimed at addressing poverty, inequality and social injustice.

The poor in urban areas of Peru are already well served in the developed Peruvian microfinance sector. Rural areas much less so. Challenges to a rural presence include the cost of transport/communication; clients have fewer assets than those in cities; scarcity of funding for rural outreach programs.

Moderator: Tracey Pettengill Turner, founder and general manager, MicroPlace (an eBay Company)
Panelists:
*Gil Crawford, CEO, MicroVest Capital Management
*Henk Nijland, Manager, micro and small enterprise fund (MASSIF), and campacity development fund, FMO - Netherlands development finance company

Tracey lives in the San Francisco Bay area.

The chart at right is from a Powerpoint presentation by Motaz El Tabaa of the Alexandria Business Association, showing the Gross Loan Portfolio (GLP) in different countries in the middle east.

Peter Johnson

Is microfinance an asset class? No. It's like "banking" in that regard.

What defines an asset class? Similar characteristics; similar behavior; volume.

Do MF "asset classes" behave distinctly? There isn't enough data, volume, to develop proper benchmarks for measuring behavior.

But MFIs show asset growth despite volatility of other assets, which suggests that they behave differently than other asset classes. "That suggests distinct behavior." MFI net income shows steady growth when other markets have not had steady performance.

Ira W. Lieberman, Ph.d., LIPAM International, Inc.

The initial listing/public offering of four leading institutions. The four institutions are:
*Banco Compartamos
*Equity ank
*Bank Rakyat Indonesia (BRI)
*Brac Bank

Microfinance is changing fast now. In the early stages, it was mainly NGOs with assorted models, using mainly donor funds. It's now in the take-off stage, with players including NGOs, banks.. Capital markets represent an additional option to raise funds for MFIs.

Bank Rakya Indonesia (BRI)