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The world's largest peer-to-peer (P2P) lender annually disbursing over a million loans totaling $10 billion, China's CreditEase, must decide whether to IPO in the NYSE its online lending platform, Yirendai, before the year-end window closes in 2015. Yirendai sought to capture its customers and make virtually instantaneous credit decisions online. CreditEase's commercial success makes funding Yirendai's growth not an issue. P2P lending in China, after explosive growth followed by notorious frauds, is increasingly controversial. On the way to becoming a global example of financial inclusion, as a result of its original business model, CreditEase also pioneered and became a leader in the wealth management industry in China, serving the country's new mass affluent and high net worth families. With so many options, how should Ning Tang, founder and CEO, chart the future strategic direction of CreditEase?

IMAX is a provider of comprehensive testing and personalized content across mid-range and low-cost private K-10 schools in India. It aims to improve learning outcomes by providing schools with an integrated product suite including  textbooks, workbooks, assessments, feedback reports, personalized worksheets  and teaching support material. Its founders however, view their B2B strategy as a seeding strategy to eventually form a B2C education marketplace where they can collaborate with other education content companies and publishers to provide the right content to the right student in the right form at the right time. To fuel this rapid growth, IMAX has been scouting for investors. It has received an equity investment offer from a large Indian educational book publisher that has been rapidly acquiring companies to strengthen its hold in the education market. The founders must decide if they should accept the publisher's offer or continue to look for an investor who believes in their vision.

An in-house venture capital fund for affordable private schools at the base of the pyramid established by Pearson, the world's largest education company, PALF sought to invest in business models providing superior educational outcomes in emerging markets on a profitable and scalable basis. With Pearson's overall strategy shifting from the developed to the developing world and from a supplier of books to a host of other learning products and services, the company thought PALF's lessons might be applicable to Pearson's core businesses. By 2014, Katelyn Donnelly, the Managing Director of PALF, and her team had made seven investments in Africa and Asia and were close to fully committing the $15 million earmarked for the initiative. In the upcoming meeting of PALF's Investment Committee, Donnelly must present a recommendation: should Pearson allocate more internal money to the fund or should they open it up to third party investors?

Mibanco, a microfinance icon, is for sale and Edyficar, owned by BCP, Peru's largest bank, is evaluating its acquisition. Until recently, such a transaction would have been fanciful given Mibanco's pre-eminent role in Peruvian microfinance which has made it the country's fifth largest bank. The case examines why Mibanco is on the block, while also relating the evolution of Edyficar and its own acquisition by BCP (Banco del Credito) several years earlier. Percy Urteaga, Edyficar's CEO, and Gianfranco Ferrari, the chair of his board and senior BCP executive, must decide whether to go forward and, if so, at what price.

The Novartis Malaria Initiative was designed, as a result of a precedent-setting agreement with the World Health Organization in 2001, to provide a breakthrough treatment for malaria-"at no profit"-for public health systems. What had begun as an exemplary act of corporate responsibility had succeeded beyond any expectations. In 2012, for the second year in a row, Novartis had manufactured and distributed over 100 million units of the anti-malarial drug Coartem ®. But with the significantly increased volumes came increased costs, bringing into question the sustainability of the program. In 2013, Dr. Linus Igwemezie, executive vice president and head of the Novartis Malaria Initiative, reflected on the evolution of the program and the way forward. His goal was to expand access to Coartem in the private sector through a low-margin, high-volume social business model to eventually enable the Malaria Initiative to break even and become financially sustainable. Was this the right strategy?

Omidyar Network, having deployed over $500 million in ways ranging from donations to commercial equity capital, must decide whether to back Anudip, an Indian organization dedicated to rural employment. The social impact of Anudip is high, but its financial performance is lackluster. Able to deploy all the tools along the capital curve of impact investing, which, if any, is optimal for Anudip? The case recounts the transition of eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and his wife Pam from the Omidyar Family Foundation (OFF) to ON, going from a traditional grant-making organization to a pioneer of impact investing: the application of investment practices in the delivery of high impact social interventions, with the intent of providing positive financial returns to investors.

A major U.S. rent-to-own company continues to grow in the recession, opening its 1000th store. The CEO, the son of the chain's founder, is wondering whether it's time to take the company global and tap into underserved foreign markets. The company's international track record has been mixed: It successfully expanded into Canada a few years back, but was forced to close a store in Puerto Rico after only a year. The more risk-averse CFO advises against overseas expansion, citing the bad experience in Puerto Rico and the untapped potential in the U.S. market. But the CEO is concerned about the increasingly tight regulatory environment. The entire rent-to-own industry is coming under attack by consumer advocates and politicians in the wake of the recession. The CEO turns to his father for advice: Should the company take a risk and open stores in Mexico or focus on expanding their domestic presence? The author of this case is Michael Chu, a senior lecturer at the Harvard Business School and a Managing Director of the IGNIA Fund, an impact investing venture capital firm based in Monterrey, Mexico. This fictional case study features commentary by experts Carlos Danel and Robert C. Loudermilk Jr.

A major U.S. rent-to-own company continues to grow in the recession, opening its 1000th store. The CEO, the son of the chain's founder, is wondering whether it's time to take the company global and tap into underserved foreign markets. The company's international track record has been mixed: It successfully expanded into Canada a few years back, but was forced to close a store in Puerto Rico after only a year. The more risk-averse CFO advises against overseas expansion, citing the bad experience in Puerto Rico and the untapped potential in the U.S. market. But the CEO is concerned about the increasingly tight regulatory environment. The entire rent-to-own industry is coming under attack by consumer advocates and politicians in the wake of the recession. The CEO turns to his father for advice: Should the company take a risk and open stores in Mexico or focus on expanding their domestic presence? The author of this case is Michael Chu, a senior lecturer at the Harvard Business School and a Managing Director of the IGNIA Fund, an impact investing venture capital firm based in Monterrey, Mexico. This fictional case study features commentary by experts Carlos Danel and Robert C. Loudermilk Jr.

A major U.S. rent-to-own company continues to grow in the recession, opening its 1000th store. The CEO, the son of the chain's founder, is wondering whether it's time to take the company global and tap into underserved foreign markets. The company's international track record has been mixed: It successfully expanded into Canada a few years back, but was forced to close a store in Puerto Rico after only a year. The more risk-averse CFO advises against overseas expansion, citing the bad experience in Puerto Rico and the untapped potential in the U.S. market. But the CEO is concerned about the increasingly tight regulatory environment. The entire rent-to-own industry is coming under attack by consumer advocates and politicians in the wake of the recession. The CEO turns to his father for advice: Should the company take a risk and open stores in Mexico or focus on expanding their domestic presence? The author of this case is Michael Chu, a senior lecturer at the Harvard Business School and a Managing Director of the IGNIA Fund, an impact investing venture capital firm based in Monterrey, Mexico.

The bottom of the economic pyramid is a risky place for business, but decent profits can be made there if companies link their financial success with their constituencies' well-being. To do that effectively, you must understand the nuances of people's daily lives, say Rangan and Chu, of Harvard Business School, and Petkoski, of the World Bank. Start by dividing the base of the pyramid into three segments according to people's earnings and related personal needs: (1) Low income: 1.4 billion people, $3 to $5 a day, (2) Subsistence: 1.6 billion people, $1 to $3 a day, and (3) Extreme poverty: 1 billion people, less than $1 a day. Next, consider the roles of various groups in the value-creation relationship: consumers, coproducers, and clients. Specific strategies work best with people in certain roles and at particular income levels. Success requires appreciating the diversity at the base of the pyramid and the importance of scale in undertaking ventures there. Witness Manila Water's success in the Philippines and Hindustan Unilever's in South Asia. Failure to appreciate those elements can foil base-of-the-pyramid ventures, as Microsoft and Procter & Gamble each discovered.

YES BANK, founded in 2003 and highly successful, has consistently been profitable meeting the Indian government's Priority Sector Lending (PSL) requirements, unlike virtually all other private sector banks, which view PSL activity as a necessary but loss-making part of their portfolio. To do this, YES BANK created a distinct Development Banking practice, under the purview of the Corporate Finance division. But now, the Development Banking team is contemplating going to the Board to take the concept one step further: pro-actively investing in PSL-qualifying activities not as a matter of regulatory compliance but as business. Should the bank devote significant financial and human resources into an ambitious Financial Inclusion Program to serve previously unbanked rural populations through a rapid expansion of its branch network and the use of nonbank business correspondents? In addition, should the bank commit part of its scarce capital to Tatva Capital, a private equity venture focused on renewable energy, clean technology, waste management, water & sanitation, food & agribusiness, affordable housing, healthcare, education & livelihood creation? Is the Board ready to incorporate development banking into the mainstream of the bank, or will this turn out to be a major error in judgment?