Thought i’d drop in a quick post about visualizing microfinance data, and reference the MixMarket.org website which tracks a large amount of Microfinance Institution (MFI) data on loans & returns. Below is an example of a Mix Market “heat map” (sometimes called a “tree map“) showing various MFIs around the world:

The map uses squares to indicate loan portfolio size, and color to indicate return on equity (blue = positive returns; red = negative returns), with MFIs grouped by continent. You can also click to drill down into specific MFIs, or also re-arrange the sorting criteria to focus on other microfinance data & attributes such as % women borrowers or % portfolio at risk. It’s pretty neat… give it a whirl.

For more info on data visualization (not just microfinance), check out some other cool sites here:

• Many-Eyes.com
• Swivel.com
• Viz4All (Univ. MD)
• CIA World Factbook

If you know of additional sites & sources for displaying or visualizing microfinance data, please provide info in the comments… we’d love to hear about them.