Since 2012, the Universal Standards for Social Performance aim at promoting best and more responsible practices in the microfinance sector. By adopting the Universal Standards, microfinance institutions (MFIs) put clients at the center of their strategic and operational decisions. This was the main purpose of KOMIDA, the second largest MFI in Indonesia, when it implemented the SPI4 (the Universal Standards assessment tool). Here is the story of the implementation of a client-centered approach.
KOMIDA grants 6 types of products: general loans, micro-business loans, education loans, sanitary loans, household loans and agriculture loans. It serves 374 259 clients, all women. In 2015, KOMIDA understood that loans did not only affect clients’ living standards, but had also social impact on their lives. Therefore, KOMIDA has committed to take into account social indicators in operational and management activities. The use of Universal Standards for Social Performance allow KOMIDA to better target clients. It also help them to understand their needs and the social effects of loans.
Implementing SPI4
In a year, SPI4 has improved KOMIDA’s management, and especially for reaching a proper target, knowing accurately the variety of products meant for clients, and grasping the institution growth. It has even increased some social indicators for tracing the program’s effects, such as: the percentages of clients in rural area, the percentages of poverty ending amongst clients. The institution has also become attentive to social effects such as clients’ ability to pay child school fees or to access to health care.
KOMIDA’s impact on clients
In 2015, KOMIDA designed 3 social goals with support from the NGO Opportunity International. First, the institution wants to reach women from poor and financially excluded households. In addition, it ambitions to provide a range of quality financial and non-financial service, and to improve clients incomes, health, and education.
KOMIDA reaches the poorest people. Indeed, 66,6% of their clients are living with $2,25 a day, and 62% are financially excluded.
- 89% have access to their own drinking water
- 71% have access to a toilet
- 97% have access to health treatment
- 74.4% of children in school age (6-18 years old) attend school regularly
Facilitated by SPI-4, KOMIDA’s client-centered approach has proved to be successful for improving the efficiency of KOMIDA’s financial products. The institution has understood that it must manage its social performances as judiciously as it manages its financial performance to reach its social goals.
Ruslianah Syafie, Manager SPM & Reporting KOMIDA