Essentially, the Alliance for Fair Microfinance is an initiative of persons that feel uncomfortable with some of the new developments in the industry: the emergence of a new class of microfinance millionaires, the inappropriate application of double bottom line objectives, the steamrolling pursuit of over-ambitious industry targets, the disguise of institutional interests behind public concerns and the evangelism involved in fund raising and marketing. In a word, a disappointment with the decline of ethical and moral standards that has come with the spectacular growth of the industry.

The initiators of the Alliance are not romantics. Many of us earn a living by working in microfinance but have always thought that there should be ways to combine sound business principles with basic ethical standards. And we believe that microfinance was primarily meant to serve poor people rather than to fund or support agencies and other supply side players. We are people who cling to the notion that tax payers and donors money should be spent in line with the rationale for which it is being raised, not for the purpose of personal or institutional self-interest and self-enrichment.

We do not mind commercialization in microfinance; we do mind the lack of a level playing field in the industry and the neglect of customer protection, which is supposed to accompany commercialization and the process of markets coming to maturity. Basically, we object to the half-hearted way in which commercialization is being promoted and pursued by disenfranchising the weaker party in the market in favor of the stronger one.

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