i have this long time boss who called me recently and told me he wants to setup a micro-finance bank in my area(rural). He wants me to head the place but he said i should write him "a proposal on how to start a micro-finance biz". Aven`t written any kind of proposal got me confused, hope someone can help here, pls

I think what u shud focus on now is a business plan. You can hire good business plan consultants to write it if u cant. But make sure u hire an expert and not just any self acclaimed pro. As starting a mcb is not quite the same as other businesses.

Hello.

Starting a microfinance bank requires key activities, some of which include;

License to operate (to be applied for with the CBN)
Conditions that go with such license must be fulfilled, even if the license is provisional. Based on your focus, your license type will be a unit-micro-finance license since your target market is the rural area.
Feasibility study
Business Case (Cost-Benefit Analysis)
Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA)
Market & Marketing research and a few other critical enablers.

It is imperative to note that starting a greenfield project like yours is entirely capital-intensive and you must be ready to tarry for a while to break-even (particularly since your focus is the rural community).

This is our take; look around your locality for an already existing micro-finance institution (with existing customers) that is registered with the CBN and willing to take a huge equity to take a big stake in their business, or better still, willing to sell 100%. Before such deal is effected however, you must conduct a thorough due-diligence with expert financial analysts, corporate lawyers and accountants who will assist to ensure the company's books are clean, asset/ liabilities-wise (so you don't buy a company that owes more than it owns to an unbearable extent).

After conducting your due diligence, you may go ahead to conduct some other research around problems with the institution to identify gap areas that you intend to bridge, to improve value of the bank (which must be geared towards delivering greater value to customers).

Haven highlighted all of these, you may still go ahead to carry out a 'greenfield-analysis' (starting a micro-finance bank from the scratch) and compare with purchasing an existing micro-finance bank (or taking a large stake).

Come to angelstartups.com.ng to learn more about business strategies and tactics. Send us a mail via angelstartups@gmail.com and we could refer professional business plan writers to choose from.
(Our official mail is admin@angelstartups.com.ng, but this is down for now due to some upgrade)

Cheers.