Micro Credit Awareness Program at Seremban



Participants at the Seremban Micro Finance Program

 The Taskforce organized a third micro credit awareness program with speakers from AKPK, BSN and Agro bank. The earlier ones were in Perai and Kapar. Over 85 people came to the Seremban program on Saturday, Feb 12, 2011 which was held at the MIC State office with a majority being men namely 58 and the remaining 27 were women.

Micro Business experience

It is interesting to note that many are already undertaking micro or small business. Some were undertaking transportation enterprise, or running a bridal set up and others selling eatables such as ‘nasi lemak’ or sales pertaining to flowers or prayer items or in direct selling in health care products.

Among the two people who interacted with Datuk Dr Denison were Mr S Harikrishan and Mr K Ramani. Both are very successful businessmen. In the case of Hari he runs a cleaning service and Mr Ramani manages small plantations on lease. Both seem to be in a good business area and so far they have grown from very small using personal funds and resources. Both admit that access to loans is an issue and their financial management styles and approaches are a problem for formal banking. However they both recognize that in order for them to grow they need to

• Reorganise their business
• Develop more professional approaches
• Standardize financial and banking practices
• Develop credit discipline

Issue of high interest

A major issue raised at the Sermeban gathering  was regarding to why is the interest rates for BSN and Agro bank was so high namely between 14 to 17%? A number raised this concern and there was some reluctance to applying for this loan.

The bank officials indicated that the cost of micro loans are high and therefore to cover their cost they have to charge this interest rate. In addition there is the high risk factor too. The people however feel that it is the duty of the Federal government to assist micro and small players in the market with just interest say 4 to 7 % rather than 14 to 17%.

Both Hari and Ramai were looking forward to special schemes by the Federal government which is in the interest of building micro and small Indian businesses.

Talk on Financial Management

The participants were very delighted with the AKPK speaker Mr Segaran and his presentation on financial management. One participant indicated that one hour is insufficient and that more sessions must be held on how to manage our finance. Mr Steven of Sermeban MIC and who was one of the local organisers has asked the Taskforce to organize another two to three hours program on financial management and he has assured to being over 30 young people.

For the Taskforce team this is a learning curve in order to pilot test especially in areas such as micro enterprise awareness, access to available micro credit loans and acquiring good financial management information and procedures. There is a need for a national scheme to update and upgrade micro Indian business operators so that their potential can be tap for wealth creation and improvement of the quality of life index among the bottom 40% in the Indian community.