Sustainable Microfinance - Balanced Scorecard's added value for ...

A final aspect that is exceedingly important in developing countries is the financial
education; the main goal is to prevent over-indebt-ness. This is a hot topic after the
first microfinance bubble has busted in Nicaragua because too many people had
taken on too much debt and where unable to repay causing the MFIs to default
(Pater, 2010). In the Netherlands this is not yet an issue, but another aspect of
financial education that is relevant in the Netherlands is, explaining entrepreneurs
about the financial administration. The interviewees expressed their concerns about
the knowledge the average starting entrepreneur has about accounting.
5.2.4. Sustainability Entrepreneur
Three different aspects have been identified that influence the sustainability of a
starting entrepreneur (see appendix G).
First of all, personal factors play a role. Pater (2010) described how business loans
are used for personal consumptive investments in developing countries; ‘that loan is
not always used to start up a business, you can also get a loan and use is for a flat
screen television to put it oddly, but it happens, maybe not a flat screen television but
the marriage of the daughter’. Within the Netherlands similar actions occur due to
demanding partners or other relatives that command a share of the return for
consumptive means as described by Boer (2010); ‘entrepreneurs who started up
their business and have a wife that will say; 'o, now you are an entrepreneur, so I can
start driving an BMW'.’ and later ‘people from other cultures who have become an
entrepreneur, will have family that will say; 'well, you are a success now, so you can
start taking care of us’. The signs that I receive now, is that people also need
coaching about how they should get their family of their back. Apparently that is
particularly common in the Surinamese society’.
The second aspect related to the sustainability of an entrepreneur is that in the
modern world overhead cost can be very low. Due to the modern technology such as
Internet and other virtual networks it is not necessary to sustain an expensive
network or other forms of infrastructure. Especially a service oriented small business
can be started up without any major investments.
The third aspect that is mentioned by the majority of the respondents is growth. It is
identified as an indicator for the demand of the customers. Some argue that it is a
determinant of the success of microfinance as a whole and arguments have been
Elmar Hoogendoorn 62
Sustainable Microfinance