The SEEP network conference had a comprehensive impact on the direction the LMFA’s strategy and business plan should be set and it was a good platform for exchange with other networks and learn from their experience.

The industry is expanding its horizons into a broader scale as the digital disruption reshapes the Financial Inclusion Landscape and new regulations are necessary, non-financial services and value chains become a must, capped with responsible microfinance focused on client centric approach.

Our challenge is to capitalize on these developments. Lebanon is quite behind the curve on this front and the LMFA would be advocating for regulatory changes to fasten the adoption and deployment of digital payments and transactions within the microfinance sector.

LMFA members attended three full days of the SEEP conference, followed by a full day of meetings with industry stakeholders. Highlights during the conference days included:

  • Ilda Nahas’ presentation of LMFA to SEEP’s Member Assembly.
  • LMFA lunch dialogue table designed for SEEP members to learn more about LMFA and possible areas of collaboration.
  • Dinner with microfinance associations from sub-Saharan Africa.
  • Networking meetings.
  • Plenaries and peer learning sessions exploring promising practices and lessons learned around financial inclusion, markets systems development, women’s economic empowerment and evidence and measurement for better development outcomes.

After the conference, LMFA attended a full day of meetings with several financial inclusion actors representing a wide range of perspectives and topics such as Islamic microfinance and refugee/host communities needs in Lebanon, client protection, fintech, global financial inclusion trends and strategies, donor interests and priorities in financial inclusion.

Our meetings in DC with CGAP, ACCION and Palladium were constructive into leading the way to organize our broad service lines and some of our strategic objectives.