President and CEO
Kamrul Hasan Tarafder President and CEO
Early Life and Education
Mr. Kamrul Hasan Tarafder was born on May 25, 1957, in a remote village named Sreebawr in Habiganj. His parents were primary school headteachers, though his father was a 2nd Lieutenant at British Army Supply Corp at WWII deployed in Dimapur, Assam. Despite the certain opportunity, Kamrul’s father didn’t pursue his career with British Army but came back to the native village to serve his village constituent. The principle of his parents’ sacrifices to serve the poor with whatever capacity one has inspired Kamrul to be a social worker. However, he lost track of his college education because of severe poverty as his family lost everything during the liberation war in 1971. Eventually, he took his bachelor’s degree from Jamalpur College, Dhaka University, in 1988.
Career Kamrul Hasan Tarafder worked for several NGOs and then with ASA Bangladesh, where he built up his career from December 1992 to June 2002. He was seconded to UNDP Philippines in 1998 and handled three important projects as Team Leader Consultant. In June 2002, he officially left ASA Bangladesh and enrolled with AIM in July 2002. However, he rejoined UNDP Philippines in December 2002 and continued to study ME, and finally graduated on December 16, 2003, with distinction for commendable performance.
Establishing ASA Philippines Foundation:
While he was in school at AIM, Kamrul prepared his business plan to start something from scratch that would reflect exponential growth without any grants. A Filipino philanthropist Amb. Howard Q. Dee, who committed to funding and together decided to start an NGO to help the poor.
Late President Mrs. Corazon Aquino joined the venture just before the inception. The operations started on the 2nd of August 2004 with only 3 staff and recruited only 2 clients in one month. It started operations in August 2004 with financial seed capital from the Assisi Development Foundation and the Ninoy & Cory Aquino Foundation. In 2007, PLDT Smart Foundation joined as a third benefactor.
ASA began operations in 2004 with the goal of delivering the most cost-effective, efficient, and client-responsive microfinance services to the entrepreneurial poor at the cheapest rate. Through its microfinance programme, ASA hopes to alleviate poverty by providing the poor and marginalized sectors of society with sustainable microfinance services (lending, savings, and insurance products), while maintaining a high portfolio quality.
Kamrul Tarafder started work in the microfinance industry with ASA Bangladesh. In 1998, he began working jointly with ASA Bangladesh and the United Nations Development Program teaching the ASA methodology to more than 20 microfinance institutions (MFIs) in the Philippines over a span of 5 years.
Today ASA Philippines is one of the largest MFIs in South East Asia and the Pacific, serving close to 1.9 million borrowers managed by 10 thousand staff in 1683 branches. As of August 2020, the Foundation has more than US$454.00million portfolio and equity of US$167.00million. The Foundation has spent US$61.00 million for the CSR program to assist its borrowers without receiving any grants from the donors.
Kamrul sits on several boards in both business and NGOs including microfinance council of the Philippines, credit bureau MiDAS and others. He was invited to speak about ASA Philippines at Oxford and Harvard and many other universities. He speaks frequently to the national and international audiences. In February 2020 he was conferred with the prestigious Triple-A Award of FAIM.
ASA Philippines has funded projects such as: building sanitation systems in Apayao, Leyte, Maguindanao, Marawi; developing renewable energy sources in Bicol, Palawan, and Samar; and providing disaster response to Leyte, Zamboanga and Marawi. From these projects, the communities have acquired financial education and exercised personal responsibility, thus ensuring the projects’ sustainability.
ASA is the top microfinance organization in Philippines with over 1.2 million active poor women borrowers, mostly mothers, and a collection rate of over 99%. The model for microfinance is ASA Philippines. In 15 years, they have been lending P21 billion to 1.9 million borrowers for a yearly total of P60 billion. The chemistry is brought about by Mr. Kamrul Tarafder and the Aquino-Dee Foundation.
ASA Philippines Foundation is the first and only MFI-NGO to receive a non-guaranteed direct soft loan facility from ADB in Southeast Asia, in the Asian lender’s history.
ASA has 16 years of microfinance experience. But their Islamic finance is about 6 years. They started on pilot 2014 in Taguig and then they started to visit different other countries including Malaysia, Indonesia and Bangladesh. But they went to Indonesia more because it has cultural similarity with the Philippines and they visited several institutions and the Sharia school there, the Universidad Negara Islamiyah Indonesia, particularly their School of Sharia Law where they were able to see the appropriate model for the Philippines.
ASA partnered with Coca-Cola and DTI in a worthwhile venture of rebuilding the nation this pandemic. They believe this initiative will help the 12,817 micro-entrepreneurs to reopen their business surely but safely in the ongoing pandemic crisis.
Personal life
Kamrul Hasan Tarafder is married to Hajja Dabirunnessa Khatun Tarafder a resident of Habiganj town Bangladesh and together they are gifted with one child Mehedi Anwarul Hasan Tarafder who is an IT entrepreneur. They have a granddaughter, one-year old Nessa Mahdia Cruz Tarafder.