Assessment of Financial and Operating performance: [A Case study on Specialized Financial and Promotional Institution (SFPI)]

Abstract

The establishment of sustainable MFI that reach a large number of rural and urban poor who are not served by the conventional financial institutions, such as the commercial banks, has been a prime component of the new development strategy of Ethiopia. Healthy financial and operating performance of microfinance institutions is very important for their well functioning and to serve their clients properly. The motivating philosophy of this paper is that unless MFIs become viable and sustainable financial institutions, they can never fully realize their objective of reaching a greater number of poor people. In light of this, this paper has attempted to look at the Financial and Operating Performance of SFPI at firm level and compare against the Industry Average from Sustainability and Profitability; Portfolio Quality; Efficiency and Productivity and Outreach level perspectives. Based on judgmental sampling technique five MFIs (SFPI, ACSI, DECSI, OCSSCO and OMO) were selected and taken as industry average. Data for the study were entirely based on secondary sources and various ratios and indicators were used to measure the performance of SFPI. Sixteen years data from 1999 to 2014 were used to see the trend in performance and revealed through tables, figures and ratios. The major finding of the study indicates that, In terms of outreach SFPI is performing well compared to the industry average particularly a significant result has observed in terms of emphasizing more number of women borrowers. In terms of portfolio quality SFPI has also better than the industry average. In terms of financial Sustainability and Profitability SFPI is in a position to generate sufficient revenue to cover operating costs at the same time its ability to operate and expand without subsidies is possible for this institution. However in terms of productivity and efficiency SFPI is seen to be less efficient and less productive as compared to the industry average. In general SFPI’s financial and operating performance was well and sound as compared to the Industry average.