The microfinance market expects a new wave of global change. Microfinance organizations will face further restrictions on the maximum amount of debt, the introduction of a maximum interest rate on short-term loans, the introduction of a special product and the requirements for the maximum amount of the customer's debt. The conditions for granting preferential financing to funds for SME support are changing as well. Many credit cooperatives have to revise their principles of cooperative community, and, together with pawnshops, to transfer accounting to the Unified Chart of Accounts. All financial institutions at different times will have to join the service of the financial commissioner (ombudsman), which will consider the appeals of clients - borrowers, investors and shareholders in pre-trial order. The active work of the mega-regulator on introduction of proportional regulation and behavioral supervision will continue, many approaches to industry regulation will be reviewed.

These and other initiatives of legislators and regulators put before the participants of the microfinance industry present a tough but fair choice - to change or leave the market.

The reasons for the tightening of legislation are largely hidden in the still high level of social tension around the market, the ambiguous reputation of the entire industry in the public consciousness and the media. But it is impossible to change the image of microfinance without changing the principles of the work of industry participants.

Obviously, the MFI, CCs, Agricultural CCs and pawnshops are in for a serious transformation not only of business, established processes and skills, but also for a profound change in the very ideology of the market. Today, the market needs to make a qualitative transition:

• From formal compliance with laws and standards to informed business management;
• From the orientation towards maximizing profits to the priority of the interests of the client / shareholder;
• From the issuance of loans to the provision of integrated financial services;
• From isolation and competitive struggle to consolidation of the interests and actions of all market participants.

At the Conference the following topics will be discussed:

• Technology: Cost reduction and capacity expansion
• Basic standards of MFIs and CCs: First practice and first changes
• Unfair practices of MFIs, CCs and pawnshops: View from the industry and from the Bank of Russia
• Financial inclusion: From theory to practice
• Key security threats and methods to combat them
• Unified Chart of Accounts: Using the experience of MFIs for successful transition of CCs, Agricultural CCs and pawnshops
• Marketplace: All creditors on one showcase
• Marketing for MFIs, CCs and pawnshops: From product dictatorship to customer hegemony
• Reserves for MFIs and ССs: How to count them correctly
• Human resources: Increasing the prestige of work in the microfinance market
• Recovery: Transformation into legal collection
• And many other issues that are acute for the microfinance market.

The Conference will traditionally be organized in the format of plenary sessions, discussion sessions, and master classes and roundtables.

The annual National Conference on Microfinance and Financial  Inclusion is:

• The largest and most representative professional platform of the microfinance community with a long history
• The Conference is included in the top 3 events of the World Entrepreneurship Week, held in more than 150 countries around the world
• More than 20 plenary, discussion and training sessions on the most relevant topics of the microfinance market
• About 700 participants - representatives of federal and regional authorities, regulators, international development institutions, self-regulating, public and human rights organizations, leading microfinance institutions, authoritative representatives of the banking sector, Russian and international microfinance community, analysts, experts, and media.