Mikrolån i Indien : Regelverket och dess effekter

Sammanfattning: The purpose of the thesis is to study microcredit regulation in India, how it is designed, and how it affects the borrowers. Since microfinance institutes (MFIs) often claim that microcredit is a tool for empowering women, the impact on women has been studied in particular in the thesis. The success and the failures from using different models and legal structures for microcredit can be used to improve credit regulation in both developing and developed jurisdictions. The research questions that are studied are: What impact does microcredit regulation have on borrowers? How does microcredit impact women in particular? How can microcredit regulation improve the well-being of borrowers? In order to fulfil the aim of the thesis, a field study in India has been carried out to interview borrowers of microcredit, employees at a MFI and other experts on the field. To understand the impact that microcredit has had on the borrowers, the Capabilities Approach is applied on results from interviews with borrowers. Microcredit provides small loans to people in developing countries. It has become popular all over the world as a tool to alleviate poverty and empower women, especially in India. The sector was largely unregulated in India until the event of the Andhra Pradesh crisis in 2010. Leading up to the crisis, many microfinance institutes scaled up quickly and several entities shifted from not-for-profit into for-profit entities as financial institutions and commercial banks entered the sector. The methods used by the institutes, along with the non-existing legal support, led to borrowers defaulting and becoming over-indebted. Reports in the media emerged of some borrowers committing suicide as an effect of the crisis. The public reputation of microcredit was for the first time tarnished. After the crisis the sector begun to regulate the for-profit microfinance institutes that had caused the crisis. Today, they are fully regulated and supervised by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). Other entities have remained unregulated, despite attempts to regulate them. The study has shown that microcredit has improved the well-being of most of the borrowers in terms of change in status, social participation, and increase in income. When using the Capabilities Approach microcredit can enhance one’s capabilities and freedom if the microcredit regulations aim is to improve the well-being. In terms of how microcredit impacts women specially, the interviews show that women are not always the primary user of the loan, she is often used as an instrument through which the husband gets the loan. Microcredit has the potential for positively impacting female well-being, but it does not presently live up to the notion of empowering women through entrepreneurship. To conclude, borrowers’ well-being has improved through the introduction of microcredit, but there is no clear correlation between microcredit and improvements in well-being. Well-being cannot be achieved if there is no regulation in place which aims to prevent exploitation of MFIs. The event of Andhra Pradesh crisis provides us with examples of how microcredit regulation can be an important tool in improving welfare and reducing harmful credit.