SMFISC institution share company (SMFISC) was founded in January31, 2011 registered by the National Bank of Ethiopia according to proclamation No. 626/2009, December2011 started operations. It has been 6 years since SMFISC began providing financial services to the poor of the region. The Institution has been giving the services by opining 24 branches. SMFISC has made a total amount of disbursement of 1,828,552,415.38 birr to nearly 48,500 clients of which 34,413 are active clients and over 23,227 of whom are poor women and 11,186 are men. The total amount of outstanding loan is 1,053,829,599.62 birr (as of June 30, 2019).
With strong support of Ethiopian Somali regional state the Institution has been showing great effort to expand its outreach with in this short period, however , shortage of trained man power in microfinance, shortage of loan able fund, poor infrastructure of the region, along with some social and cultural barriers, couldn’t allow it to have as much outreach as possible. As a result of this, there are still many economically productive poor people of the region waiting for the service to come. Thus over the coming years, focus should be towards financial intermediation based on more commercial and market principles, with enhanced focus on mobilize saving , effort have to be enhanced to diversify the group lending modality to include individual as well as village banking models, put a lot of effort on capacity building by organize training for management and staff in the various fields of micro finance so as to address capacity constraints which hamper efficient management and leadership. Indeed, Somali micro finance, as key player in the microfinance sector in the region is expected to play a vital role in struggle against poverty. With the support of all around, I think this is achievable.