Thank you to John Shon, Reference Data Group, Credit Suisse, for this guest blog post.

The Credit Suisse Microfinance Advocates Network is an employee global network with the mission to promote microfinance to the rest of the bank. It is our goal to educate employees on current issues faced by the microfinance industry and to create opportunities to give back and become involved. Credit Suisse partners with four microfinance institutions, one of which is Opportunity International, and we are hoping to hold an event with each MFI in 2010. Globally, there are 340 Microfinance Advocates. New York is the largest region with 200 members.

On April 23, 2010, we held the first main event of 2010 — a great presentation on Opportunity’s electronic wallet strategy. We had a packed house with every seat filled and people standing along the back. Approximately 80 employees attended from every area of the bank and with titles ranging from analyst to managing director. Many thanks to April DuBois, Richard Spalholz, Liesel Pritzker and Daryl Skoog, who all gave excellent talks that directly spoke to the interests of the audience. The event was a huge success and is being labeled as the best ever to date for the Advocates Network. Also, we had 20 new Advocates join at the event. Together with last year’s Holiday Opportunity Coffee Club Sale, these events have resulted in 43 additional New York Advocates. It goes without saying that our partnership with Opportunity has truly fueled the momentum behind the network’s tremendous growth over the past year.

For more information on Credit Suisse’s support of Opportunity International and microfinance, visit opportunity.org/creditsuisse.

Opportunity’s partnership with Credit Suisse enables us to expand cutting-edge banking technologies to our clients.  Read our previous blog posts about this: ”Is Access to Financial Services a Human Right?“ and “Cell Phone Banking Technology Comes to Opportunity Malawi.”