1. MSME Unit
Aurora Ferrari
The World Bank
June 19, 2012

2. What we do
Topics:
1. Access to savings and credit for low income households, Micro Small and Medium Scale Enterprises
2. Trade Finance for SMEs
3. Consumer protection and financial literacy for households and micro/small enterprises
Corporate Responsibilities:
1. Coordination of IDA-IFC MSME pilot program for Africa 
2. Ensure compliance to bank policies of all WB loans that include a line of credit
3. Quality control for Financial Sector Assessments Programs – Access to Finance

3. Our products
The MSME service line has the following products:
Consumer Protection Diagnostics Assessments of country legal and regulatory and institutional set up
Households’ surveys of financial capability
TA to countries in consumer protection and financial literacy
Guidance to regional teams on project design and restructuring in topical areas covered by the unit
Trade finance legal and regulatory country assessments
Guidance to regional teams on compliance of lines of credit with Bank policy
Knowledge management in topical areas covered by the unit
Staff training in topical areas covered by the unit

4. What Works What's Difficult
Topical areas of great interest to our clients
What's Difficult
Very broad topical areas covered – difficulty in providing on time and in depth knowledge
Selectivity required in light of limited resources
Very decentralized clients
Large volumes, efficiency and quality are key to profitable small business lending. Because of the high costs involved in making small loans, banks need to make many good loans. As in other lines of business with small margins, commercial banks need to increase revenue – i.e. they need to make many loans – and at the same time to decrease expenses –i.e. they have to increase loan officer productivity and avoid bad loans.
Cost of processing a large number of small loans is high, especially for low income and microenterprises due to:
Microfinance is NOT a social program