Microfinance in Armenia: Sector characteristics and adaptation strategies

Knar Khachatryan, Emma Avetisyan and Frédéric Teulon

No 2014-406, Working Papers from Department of Research, Ipag Business School

Abstract: The microfinance sector is relatively new in Armenia, and has shown significant increase over the last decade. We designed a qualitative research to explore the main characteristic and adaptation strategies of the microfinance sector in this country. Our findings indicate that the emergence of MFIs was subject to offering a complementary effort in filing the gap in the financial services industry. Its main objective was to address the increasing unemployment and poverty resulted from transitional shock. The microfinance market is segmented with different programs serving different populations. We found range of microfinance services, unequal coverage in terms of geography and of business sectors, revenues, unequal VAT treatment between commercial banks and MFIs, regulated Microfinance operations, and lack of cooperation within the Microfinance sector and government support as main problems of the sector development.

Keywords: Microfinance (MFI); adaptation strategy; poverty alleviation; developing economies; not for-profit firms. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 18 pages
Date: 2014-01-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cwa, nep-mfd and nep-tra
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ipg:wpaper:2014-406

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