Finance Research Seminar – Dr Iftekhar Ahmed
Title: Performance and Climate Risk in Microfinance Institutions
Date: 11 December 2024
Time: 12:00 – 13:00
Venue: FDC.1.17
If you would like to attend, please register using the following link:
Performance and Climate Risk in Microfinance Institutions
Speaker: Dr Iftekhar Ahmed
Iftekhar Ahmed is an international expert in sustainable finance with extensive research and training in climate and inclusive finance for global development. Currently, he is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Sustainable Finance and the module leader for a brand-new postgraduate module in “Green Finance and Sustainability” at Newcastle University Business School (NUBS). Following successful completion of a PhD in Finance (specialising in climate finance and risks analytics) at the University of Otago (Dunedin, New Zealand), Iftekhar started his academic and research career at the University of Cambridge (Cambridge, UK), where he led a research project on “systemic resilience in investments” as well as supervised master’s dissertations. In this capacity, he led collaborations on systemic resilience topics with a global network of pension funds, insurers and asset managers, with over $9 trillion under management and advice. Prior to this, he also held academic and research positions at the University of Otago (Dunedin, New Zealand), Universiti Utara Malaysia (Sintok, Malaysia), Universiti Teknologi MARA (Shah Alam, Malaysia), and has held guest lectures on climate-related financial risks at the Global Development Institute at the University of Manchester (Manchester, UK). He has conducted research and policy work for several organisations, including the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) and the Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI). He is the Lead Author for the IPBES nexus assessment, focusing on finance for biodiversity-related elements of the nexus. His research has been published in leading international journals, including Economics and Sociology, International Journal of Managerial and Financial Accounting and Journal of Islamic Accounting and Business Research. He has also contributed to a policy-relevant book chapter on “ASEAN energy policy” that has been published by the Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI). Additionally, he has been serving as a regular referee for several peer-reviewed journals. He is pioneering systemic resilience analytics to advance practical solutions to cope with complex environmental and social risks. His research broadly focuses on different aspects of environmental and social risk analytics for resilient finance to address complex global challenges. Current projects try to inform and influence how the work of institutional investors, asset managers, financial intermediaries and financial supervisors can achieve an equitable, net-zero and nature-positive future (for people, planet and prosperity), with a particular interest in emerging markets and developing economies.
Abstract:
The relationship between MFI performance, measured by Capital adequacy, Asset quality, Management quality, Earnings and Profitability, Liquidity and Social impact (hereafter referred to as CAMELS) factors, and different types of climate hazards is investigated. The results of a dynamic panel estimation applied to the sample of global MFIs over the period 1999-2019, suggest that MFI performance is significantly affected by climate hazards. There are heterogeneous impacts of climate hazards type on MFI performance indicators. For instance, droughts, floods, and landslides reduce MFI capital adequacy. Further, storms and wildfires are associated with lower asset quality and storms increase costs per borrower suggesting poorer management quality. Finally, floods decrease MFI liquidity and droughts are associated with reductions in social mission. The findings are robust to different measures of climate hazard impacts. The results suggest that microfinance regulators should establish capital reserve requirements to absorb adverse climate shocks. Microfinance practitioners need to monitor MFI asset allocations with respect to acute hazards.