Investments of individuals in microlenders grew by one third in a year - experts

UFA, 31 March 2017. /Bashinform News Agency, Alim Faizov/. The average size of individual investments in microfinance organizations (MFOs) increased by one third last year, and in some microlenders - by one and a half times, Izvestiya reports. The amount of investments reached 8-10 million rubles. Against the background of lower interest rates on bank deposits, it will increase by another 15 percent by the end of 2017, the representatives of companies interviewed by the publication forecast.

The main type of investment in microlenders is deposits. Their main advantage is high profitability (about 18 percent per annum with 8 percent in banks). Disadvantage is lack of insurance of such savings.

According to the results of 2016, according to the Central Bank, MFOs attracted almost 45.7 billion rubles of private investments. At the same time, investments from individuals and individual entrepreneurs who are not founders of MFOs amounted to almost 5.7 billion rubles in the last quarter of last year, which is 48 percent more than in the previous quarter.

At the moment, only 14 microlenders can attract money from citizens as investments, they are the largest participants of this market.

MFOs representatives explain the interest of individuals in investing in microfinance companies simply: they offer higher return on investment than banks.

Another attractive feature of microlenders was greater transparency of these participants in the finance market. This happened due to the implementation of a number of regulatory initiatives by the Central Bank, microlenders say.