Make microfinance great again: can flexibility in repayments improve business outcomes in North India?

Classic microfinance loan contracts characterised by rigid weekly repayment schedules used by most microfinance institutions offer little flexibility – and little benefit - to borrowers who are poor and have seasonal income. Previous research has also shown that such contracts can negatively affect the economic well-being of poor borrowers leading to underinvestment of capital, selling of productive assets, over-indebtedness through cross-financing from informal sources, reductions in consumption and income, and in some cases, a deterioration in borrowers' mental health arising from stress and worry. If lenders offered more flexibility in loan repayment schedules, would it help to overcome some of these problems? To explore this, we tested whether clients' business outcomes were sensitive to various repayment schedules using primary data collected from the clients of three microfinance institutions, a cooperative society and a few local traders specialising in business lending in a village in North India. We analysed alternatives to the rigid contract model, focussing on the degree of flexibility and the length of gap between repayments in the loan schedule. This study finds that clients repaying their loans monthly invested more in their businesses and earned higher income, compared both to those who repaid weekly and to those with an irregular payment schedule