The Swiss Microfinance Platform (SMP) was created on October 4, 2007, replacing and building upon the Geneva Microfinance Forum (GMF), started by the International Labour Organisation, ECLOF and the University of Geneva in 2005, the UN Year of Micro-Credit. It was relaunched in March 2007 by the RAFAD Foundation, initially as an informal group of microfinance practitioners. The Forum has met periodically since then to look into the suitability of forming a registered entity, to support the operations and aims of the Forum. Representatives from over thirty institutions involved in microfinance attended these meetings. The high level of participation and interest shown emphasized the need to formalize the association.

The association’s development into a Platform for debate and presentations is motivated by the need for increased leverage for more ambitious networking and policy dialogue. This takes account of the rapidly growing and diversifying microfinance scene in Switzerland. It also reflects the emergence of general debates about the role of the market in microfinance, the responsibility of the state and of donors, market failure and market distortions as well as the place of investors, social and commercial.