Sunday, July 30, 2006

Micro Investment


Micro Investment

Small sums of $100, $500 and $1000 can be collected by locally registered, privately held funds in places like New York City. But then such funds can also have large donors. Somebody might pump in $100,000 or more in one go.

Authority will rest in the shareholders and in the Board Of Directors. There would be a top dog that answers to both.

There can be more than one fund, of course. It is for an aspiring entrepreneur, or group of entrepreneurs to take initiative.

The challenge is to sell the idea that it is better for people to invest in these funds than to send money directly to their families in Nepal, that it is better to invest in these funds than to build houses in the towns of Nepal. Real estate can feel like a secure form of investment, but other forms of investments should be able to offer higher annual returns.

Free Money Transfer

Standard Chartered Bank
Standard Chartered Bank - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I learned from Ananta Risal yesterday that there is a Standard Chartered Bank that does for NRNs that Citi does for NRIs. If you have bank accounts in their New York and Kathmandu chapters, you can move dollars from here to there for free. You collect rupees at the other end. I guess the business model is to resell those dollars in Kathmandu.

At The Receiving End

I am not too knowledgeable about the policy framework at the other end. Other than the usual sluggish bureaucracy, I think there are gaping wholes. One obvious one is there is no provision for dual citizenship for the NRNs. That is a mistake. And it should be corrected right away.

Use Of The Internet

I think there should be maximum possible transparency for the investors. I should be able to track my money all the way. If I want to, I should be able to track down as to which 10 farmers are getting micro loans from my particular investment. I should be able to go visit them in Nepal if I might so desire.

Micro Credit Entrepreneurship

I have known of banks investing in big projects, usually buildings, etc. We have been trained to value physical capital. The idea about micro credit is to value human capital. You do it for money. The profit motive works. The amount of individual loans might be small, but the rate of return can be high.

And as with all loans, you have to be willing to write off a certain percentage of loans. In electricity distribution they call it chuhawat.

Policy

I think that is the real challenge. People in the diaspora at the forefront of the idea should be able to write entire policy papers with the help of locally hired legal help. So the legislators, when they are not themselves proactive, are forced to vote yes or no, one way or the other. And the work on those policy papers have to be transparent from the get-go.

It is sad that lack of policy framework is hampering the infusion of massive amounts of capital into Nepal.

Entrepreneurial Culture

That is sorely lacking among the Nepalis in New York City.

I offer a few options myself. There is network marketing. There is my technology company idea. There is a Desi fast food idea that I am also working on. The least people can do is pick up the phone to announce they are interested. Entrepreneurship is about taking initiative. Do you have what it takes?

Growing rich is glorious. Who said that? Den Xiaoping.

On The Web

[PDF] Micro Investment Development Agency Limited
Micro-investment: Building community ownership of the arts ...
Micro Loans, Solid Returns
Startups -- the micro approach
June 2006: Micro-Investment: The Last Sermon: To Someone After Me ...
dollarDEX: Micro investment conversion

Microcredit Summit Campaign
International Year of Microcredit 2005
Virtual Library on Microcredit
So, what is "microcredit" ??
Grameen - Home page of Microcredit
Microcredit - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Experts Question Wisdom of Micro-Credit for Women
International Year of Microcredit 2005

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An Event With Ananta Risal At The Nepali Mandir





Date: 30th July, 2006

I would like to thank everyone who came for the Collaborative Network Initiative. Thank you for giving your valuable time and suggestion. Special thanks to Madhurji for sharing this involvement in the Children Foundation and elaborating the outsourcing possibilities in Nepal. We were able present available brochures from the various IT companies in Nepal. Thanks to Knowledge Interface for the pizza and soda. We can't thank enough to the Chairman of the NepaliMandir Mr. Chandra Prakash Sharma to let use the venue within a short notice.

We agreed to meet within 2 weeks time and accomplish the following agenda.

Please assemble your thoughts as we need to move forward with much focused mindset.

1. Name: Suitable Name this for-profit organization

2. Purpose: The purpose of this public company is to take initiation on marketing Nepal as a service sector for Information Technology and more. Work as a show case to provide Nepal as a visibility market to the International community with trust and capacity building approach to NRN.

3. Board of Project Directors and Managers

4. Venue: will be announced later, most probably in New Jersey, 12th Aug 6-8:00 PM

5. Initial Investment: We will discuss about how to execute the company with minimum investment in the earlier stage. We will also discuss about it. We need to decide on the seed money and the number of initial directors.

Please send your valuable suggestion, feedback or any professional methods to initiate this historic business movement.

I will collect all of the ideas and float among all of collectively.

Thanks.

Attendees:

Suraj Mathema
Chandra Kalu
Gopal Shrestha
Menaka Parajuli
Ankit Parajuli
Paramendra Bhagat
Mohit Khetan
Bibhu Poudyal
Binita Poudyal
Parbati Sharma
Chandra Prakash Sharma
Bidur P. Poudyal
Mr. And Mrs. Ujjal Bhattarai
Nitya Bhattarai
Manish Sharma

Coordinator: Ananta Risal

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