MRA scraps licences of 110 MFIs for breach of rules

FE Report
A total of 112 microfinance institutions (MFIs) have faced action for breaching the existing rules and regulations, officials said.
Of the total, operating licences of 110 MFIs have been cancelled while the activities of two others put on hold, according to the Microcredit Regulatory Authority (MRA) data.
As of November last, licences of 88 MFIs have been scrapped while licences of 22 MFIs withdrawn from temporary-approved MFIs and licences of two MFIs held up, the data showed.
Currently, 704 MFIs are registered with the MRA and 153 have got licences from the authority on a temporary basis.
The number of microcredit clients reached 27.58 million in 2016, according to an annual report of MRA.
"We remind the MFIs to follow the directives of the MRA repeatedly if they don't pay attention to our directions. Ultimately, the country's central body of the NGO-MFIs rejects their licences," a source concerned said.
He said MRA's main priority agendas are eradication of poverty as well as protection of its clients' interests and fostering sustainable development of the country by ensuring transparency and accountability of microfinance operations of NGO-MFIs.
So, the regulator mainly takes decision to cancel their licences for the sake of clients' interests.
The MRA scraps the licences of the MFIs, most of whom misused funds through breach of rules set by the MRA, he said.
The microfinance regulator works to spread out its operations further across the country in order to strengthen on-sight and off-sight supervision over the MFIs, an official of MRA said.
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