Foreign investment in microfinance totals over a billion dollars, and is growing rapidly (supply is expected to double in 2006 and double again by 2008). These funds are today mostly set for average foreign investments of less than a million U.S. dollars in short term hard currency debt. They have also in the past five years targeted largely the same few dozen institutions, monopolizing much of the attention in the industry. Current policy makers are thus increasingly pressuring investment intermediaries to broaden the scope and geographical outreach of investment products and match adequately the large inflow of funds with the large market demand.
New investment vehicles are offering different asset classes to the investor, from high reward first loss investments to fully guaranteed notes.
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