![](\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Good-Return-impact-investment-loan-recipient-Lor-Yiin-in-Cambodia-e1774979102764.jpg?w=2048\")
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Many women business owners around the world can\u2019t get access to the financing they need. The Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative, a World Bank-housed partnership, estimated that 400 million female entrepreneurs struggle to get loans, and serving them could lead to as much as $6 trillion in added value for the global economy.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Yet across Asia-Pacific, banks hesitate to lend to women entrepreneurs. That\u2019s partly due to stereotypes, but it\u2019s also because lending criteria wasn\u2019t designed to capture how female-led small- and medium-sized enterprises operate. As Diana Tjoeng, head of Asia for Sydney-based NGO Good Return points out, demale business owners may lack official identity documents and formal credit histories, even if they\u2019ve run their businesses for decades.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe specific barrier is capital,\u201d says Lisa George, global head of the Macquarie Group Foundation. \u201cWithout access to capital, it\u2019s very hard to get social mobility and educational mobility in life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Earlier this year, the Macquarie Group Foundation committed one million Australian dollars ($696,000) to an impact investment fund managed by Good Return, which works to expand access to finance for women-led businesses across Asia-Pacific. The two groups have worked together since 2022, when Macquarie took part in what was then a proof-of-concept guarantee fund targeting women-led small- and medium-sized enterprises in Cambodia and Indonesia.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Good Return\u2019s first impact investment fund closed at one million Australian dollars. That seed capital, deployed as loan guarantees to local financial institutions, catalysed five million Australian dollars (approximately $3.5 million) in loans to more than 600 small businesses.\u00a0The fund targets the \u201cmissing middle,\u201d with loans of around $1000 to $100,000 in size.<\/p>\n
\u201cMacquarie was really pleased with the results of the first fund,\u201d says Shane Nichols, CEO of Good Return. \u201cTheir team provided pro bono support to us to help us design and structure our new fund.\u201d<\/p>\n
Diana Tjoeng, Good Return\u2019s head of Asia, cites the example of a female farmer in Cambodia, who was able to take out a loan of around $8000 from a commercial bank without putting up collateral, thanks to a guarantee from Good Return\u2019s first fund. The money allowed her to build two greenhouses, adding two cabbage harvests to her rice harvest and thus increase her income.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Good Return\u2019s second fund is structured as an evergreen vehicle: rather than returning capital to investors at a fixed end date, it recycles proceeds back into fresh loan guarantees on a rolling basis.\u201d The organisation estimates the model could unlock 50 million Australian dollars ($35 million) in loans to women-led businesses every five years.<\/p>\n
Corporate philanthropy<\/p>\n
For Macquarie, the Good Return partnership sits within a long tradition of corporate philanthropy. The Macquarie Group Foundation was established in 1985 by David Clarke, the executive chairman of Macquarie.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a company is a member of the society in which it operates, it follows that one of its important duties is to work in a multitude of ways for the betterment of society,\u201d Clarke said at the Foundation\u2019s formation. Since its founding, the Foundation has contributed a cumulative 698 million Australian dollars ($487 million) to community organisations.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur founding chairman believed a company had an obligation to support the communities in which we operate,\u201d George says. \u201cNot only did he believe that about the company, he believed that about the individuals in the company.\u201d In the most recent financial year, more than a third of eligible staff globally participated in some form of community activity, which, according to George, includes activities like running interview and CV workshops for young Australians and refugees. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe biggest benefit we get from corporate philanthropy is in employee engagement,\u201d she continues. \u201cIt\u2019s a positive halo effect for our most important stakeholder, the people that come in and out of the doors every day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lisa George, Global Head of the Macquarie Group Foundation<\/p>\n
Courtesy of Macquarie<\/p>\n
Most of the Foundation\u2019s work is in Macquarie\u2019s home of Australia, focusing on helping Australians find employment. \u201cGood Return is probably the exception, rather than the rule,\u201d George says. The Foundation added impact investing to its work five decades ago to complement its traditional grantmaking process; the hope is that the Foundation\u2019s work will generate some return that can be recycled into other projects.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a contrast to views in the U.S., where the idea of stakeholder capitalism\u2014the idea that companies owe value to employees, customers, and communities, not just shareholders\u2014faces a political backlash. Major U.S. companies including BlackRock, Meta, and Bank of America have quietly backed away from their diversity, equity, and inclusion commitments.<\/p>\n
George, however, sees a different trajectory in Asia-Pacific: growing wealth across the region is creating a new generation of business leaders who want to formalise their social commitments in ways their peers in Europe and North America long have.<\/p>\n
Microfinance\u2019s fall from grace<\/p>\n
The idea that small amounts of credit could lift countries out of poverty was once one of international development\u2019s most celebrated beliefs. Pioneered by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus and his Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, the model quickly spread across South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Southeast Asia through the 1990s and 2000s.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But a proliferation of weakly-regulated microfinance institutions led to a backlash. MFIs were associated with high levels of debt, yet didn\u2019t lead to the development benefits promised by its proponents.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe microfinance sector has been through an evolution,\u201d Nichols says, \u201cfrom being the wonder child, probably put on a pedestal it didn\u2019t deserve to be on, to today, where it\u2019s part of a broader financial inclusion discussion.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWhether it\u2019s somewhere safe to save, whether it\u2019s a loan for education or a productive use, the ability to safely transfer money\u2014everyone needs access to that, regardless of wealth level.\u201d<\/p>\n
#Macquarie #bets #impact #investing #fill #Asian #finance #gap<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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