Ayani, Inclusive Financial Sector Consultants BV is an international finance management and consulting company. Incorporated in the Netherlands, with offices in Africa (South Africa, Zimbabwe), the Middle East (Egypt) and Asia (the Philippines), we offer regional expertise to complement our global experience.

Ayani aspires to increase access to finance. We dare to dream of financial sectors that include clientele coming from all income categories. This is a driving force of development and growth. Our business is to provide access to savings, insurance, credit, remittances, etc – in markets where financial services remain exclusive and, therefore, underproductive.

Inclusive access to finance requires local knowledge and experiences. Ayani's approach is based on involvement of local stakeholders in design, management and monitoring of solutions.

We offer technical and strategic support as well as management services in all financial markets from investment funds, bond markets, public finance, regulation, banking, SME lending, microfinance, accounting, information technology, management information systems and business development.

 

 

WHAT WE DO

 

Ayani's core competencies are to increase access to finance through strategic advisory services, project management and technical assistance to financial service providers and central banks. We also provide monitoring and evaluation services, including baseline surveys, monitoring surveys, project monitoring plans, independent institutional evaluations and impact surveys.

Our goal is to help institutionalize innovative practices from economies that have successfully deepened their financial sectors. Ayani offers first-hand knowledge of financial sectors in a wide spectrum of economies, including Africa, Asia and the Pacific, Eastern Europe, and Latin America and the Caribbean. We do this by emphasizing the need to work at all levels.

At the community level, Ayani advises how well structured grants can give almost-bankable people a chance to become clients of microbanks.

At the financial instition level, we enhance the capacity of financial service providers to include micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) finance in their product offering, develop saving and housing finance products to the underserved to build assets and insurance products to protect assets, develop responsive consumer finance, trade finance and leasing products, and tap the remittance market.

Our specialization includes advisory services to shape the structure and transparency of financial markets and their operators. This includes the development and implementation of tools, building of sector specific expertise among audit firms and research institutes, helping professional assocations strategize and advice about the most appropriate forms of wholesale finance.

At the macro level, we support central banks impart specific expertise related to lower income markets and assist governments in initiating a national dialogue, developing a vision, and planning how to increase the outreach and depth of the financial sector.

Ayani offers practical innovative solutions that identify areas for immediate improvement, so that refinements or innovations to business processes can be introduced right away. At the same time, Ayani seeks to tackle underlying issues with a view towards delivering significant and lasting results.

 

Practice Areas

 

Inclusive financial sectors

Microfinance/SME/financial sector diagnostics and surveys	Project management
National support facility design

 

Support to government and / or central banks

MFI supervision & regulation	Training, development of chart of accounts, indicators, etc.
Supporting policy dialogues

 

Strategy and policy development

Facilitating national inclusive finance strategy/policy drafting	Microfinance and tourism strategy
Microfinance association support

 

MFI due diligence, risk assessments

Due diligence/performance analysis	Identify investment opportunities
Risk assessments and management

 

Institution building for banks, NBFIs, cooperatives, etc.

Technical assistance needs identification	Management Information Systems and key performance indicator reporting
ToTs, course design & delivery	microfinance and remittances
On-the-job coaching and capacity building	microfinance and health insurance
Market research, product design & piloting	microfinance and low income housing finance

 

MFI transformations & bank downscaling, etc.

Transformation feasibility / strategy	Investor readiness tools
Business process re-engineering / change management / product diversification

 

Independent evaluations and impact assessments

Large, multiple country independent institutional evaluations

Assessing program impact, including quantitative and qualitative proven methods

 

Disadvantaged and marginalized communities

Rural finance and value chain finance	microfinance and water
Finance for displaced / returnees / youth	Cash transfers (emergencies, orphans, etc)
microfinance in areas with high incidence of HIV/AIDS