Soros makes Pakistan Grant

Tameer Microfinance Bank Ltd. in Pakistan has received a grant of US$175K from Soros Economic Development Fund (SEDF), a private non-profit foundation created to fight global poverty and aid in international development. Tameer Microfinance Bank is a private, commercial microfinance bank operating since early 2006 & is the fastest growing in Pakistan with 17 branches and an outstanding portfolio of USD $11 million. They are unique from other Microfinance banks as they are one of the first nation-wide, private sector, non-NGO transformed, commercially sustainable micro-finance institutions in Pakistan. (Tameer's CEO, Nadeem Hussein, published a fairly thorough article of the banking situation in Pakistan for further reading.)

The funding from Soros, their first microfinance grant in Pakistan, will help launch Tameer into the national ATM system allowing them to expand their reach & better serve clients in rural areas. Many of these clients rely on ATM & POS (Point-of-sale) devices for banking transactions, the norm for rural-clients in many countries. Tameer specified they plan to use the grant to provide 1,800 new ATMs to serve customers.

The Soros Economic Development Fund is a nonprofit private foundation founded in 1997 by investor/philanthropist George Soros. The Fund is part of his network of charitable foundations, called Soros Foundations. Established in 1997 to complement the work of Open Society Institute, the fund’s mission is to alleviate poverty and community deterioration by investing in local initiatives for economic development worldwide.

Annual combined expenditures of the Soros Foundations and the Open Society Institute are between $400-500 million. The family of Soros foundations and the Open Society Institute have established foundations in 29 countries with a variety of goals.