title: Microfinance

text: The microfinance project of "saving through" is shown in Nairobi, Kenya which includes a Rotating Savings and Credit Associations or ROSCAs initiative. This is a small scale example, however Rutherford (2009) describes a woman he met in Nairobi and studied her ROSCA. Every day 15 women would save 100 shillings so there would be a lump sum of 1,500 shillings and every day 1 of the 15 women would receive that lump sum. This would continue for 15 days and another woman within this group would receive the lump sum. At the end of the 15 days a new cycle would start. This ROSCA initiative is different from the "saving up" example above because there are no interest rates affiliated with the ROSCA, additionally everyone receives back what they put forth. This initiative requires trust and social capital networks in order to work, so often these ROSCAs include people who know each other and have reciprocity. The ROSCA allows for marginalized groups to receive a lump sum at one time in order to pay or save for specific needs they have.


title: Microfinance

text: Before determining loan prices, one should take into account the following costs: 1) administrative costs by the bank (MFI) and 2) transaction cost by the client/customer. Customers, on the other hand, may have expenses for travelling to the bank branch, acquiring official documents for the loan application, and loss of time when dealing with the MFI ("opportunity costs"). Hence, from a customer's point of view the cost of a loan is not only the interest and fees she/he has to pay, but also all other transaction costs that she/he has to cover.


title: Microfinance

text: One of the principal challenges of microfinance is providing small loans at an affordable cost. The global average interest and fee rate is estimated at 37%, with rates reaching as high as 70% in some markets. The reason for the high interest rates is not primarily cost of capital. Indeed, the local microfinance organizations that receive zero-interest loan capital from the online microlending platform Kiva charge average interest and fee rates of 35.21%. Rather, the main reason for the high cost of microfinance loans is the high transaction cost of traditional microfinance operations relative to loan size.


title: Microfinance

text: Microfinance practitioners have long argued that such high interest rates are simply unavoidable, because the cost of making each loan cannot be reduced below a certain level while still allowing the lender to cover costs such as offices and staff salaries. For example, in Sub-Saharan Africa credit risk for microfinance institutes is very high, because customers need years to improve their livelihood and face many challenges during this time. Financial institutes often do not even have a system to check the person's identity. Additionally, they are unable to design new products and enlarge their business to reduce the risk. The result is that the traditional approach to microfinance has made only limited progress in resolving the problem it purports to address: that the world's poorest people pay the world's highest cost for small business growth capital. The high costs of traditional microfinance loans limit their effectiveness as a poverty-fighting tool. Offering loans at interest and fee rates of 37% mean that borrowers who do not manage to earn at least a 37% rate of return may actually end up poorer as a result of accepting the loans.


title: Microfinance

text: According to a recent survey of microfinance borrowers in Ghana published by the Center for Financial Inclusion, more than one-third of borrowers surveyed reported struggling to repay their loans. Some resorted to measures such as reducing their food intake or taking children out of school in order to repay microfinance debts that had not proven sufficiently profitable.


title: Microfinance

text: In recent years, the microfinance industry has shifted its focus from the objective of increasing the volume of lending capital available, to address the challenge of providing microfinance loans more affordably. Microfinance analyst David Roodman contends that, in mature markets, the average interest and fee rates charged by microfinance institutions tend to fall over time. However, global average interest rates for microfinance loans are still well above 30%.


title: Microfinance

text: The answer to providing microfinance services at an affordable cost may lie in rethinking one of the fundamental assumptions underlying microfinance: that microfinance borrowers need extensive monitoring and interaction with loan officers in order to benefit from and repay their loans. The P2P microlending service Zidisha is based on this premise, facilitating direct interaction between individual lenders and borrowers via an internet community rather than physical offices. Zidisha has managed to bring the cost of microloans to below 10% for borrowers, including interest which is paid out to lenders. However, it remains to be seen whether such radical alternative models can reach the scale necessary to compete with traditional microfinance programs.


title: Microfinance

text: Practitioners and donors from the charitable side of microfinance frequently argue for restricting microcredit to loans for productive purposes—such as to start or expand a microenterprise. Those from the private-sector side respond that, because money is fungible, such a restriction is impossible to enforce, and that in any case it should not be up to rich people to determine how poor people use their money.


title: Microfinance

text: There has been a long-standing debate over the sharpness of the trade-off between 'outreach' (the ability of a microfinance institution to reach poorer and more remote people) and its 'sustainability' (its ability to cover its operating costs—and possibly also its costs of serving new clients—from its operating revenues). Although it is generally agreed that microfinance practitioners should seek to balance these goals to some extent, there are a wide variety of strategies, ranging from the minimalist profit-orientation of BancoSol in Bolivia to the highly integrated not-for-profit orientation of BRAC in Bangladesh. This is true not only for individual institutions, but also for governments engaged in developing national microfinance systems. BRAC was ranked the number one NGO in the world in 2015 and 2016 by the Geneva-based NGO Advisor.


title: Microfinance

text: Microfinance provides women around the world with financial and non-financial services, especially in the most rural areas that do not have access to traditional banking and other basic financial infrastructure. It creates opportunities for women to start-up and build their businesses using their own skills and talents.


title: Microfinance

text: Utilizing savings, credit, and microinsurance, Microfinance helps families create income-generating activities and better cope with risk. Women particularly benefit from microfinance as many microfinance institutions (MFIs) target female clients. Most microfinance institutions (MFIs) partner with other organizations like Water.org and Habitat for Humanity to provide additional services for their clients.


title: Microfinance

text: Microfinance is a sustainable process that creates real jobs, opens opportunities for future investments and helps the women clients provide for the education to their children.


title: Microfinance

text: Microfinance generally agree that women should be the primary focus of service delivery. Evidence shows that they are less likely to default on their loans than men. Industry data from 2006 for 704 MFIs reaching 52 million borrowers includes MFIs using the solidarity lending methodology (99.3% female clients) and MFIs using individual lending (51% female clients). The delinquency rate for solidarity lending was 0.9% after 30 days (individual lending—3.1%), while 0.3% of loans were written off (individual lending—0.9%). Because operating margins become tighter the smaller the loans delivered, many MFIs consider the risk of lending to men to be too high. This focus on women is questioned sometimes, however a recent study of microentrepreneurs from Sri Lanka published by the World Bank found that the return on capital for male-owned businesses (half of the sample) averaged 11%, whereas the return for women-owned businesses was 0% or slightly negative.


title: Microfinance

text: Microfinance's emphasis on female-oriented lending is the subject of controversy, as it is claimed that microfinance improves the status of women through an alleviation of poverty. It is argued that by providing women with initial capital, they will be able to support themselves independent of men, in a manner which would encourage sustainable growth of enterprise and eventual self-sufficiency. This claim has yet to be proven in any substantial form. Moreover, the attraction of women as a potential investment base is precisely because they are constrained by socio-cultural norms regarding such concepts of obedience, familial duty, household maintenance and passivity. The result of these norms is that while micro-lending may enable women to improve their daily subsistence to a more steady pace, they will not be able to engage in market-oriented business practice beyond a limited scope of low-skilled, low-earning, informal work. Part of this is a lack of permissivity in the society; part a reflection of the added burdens of household maintenance that women shoulder alone as a result of microfinancial empowerment; and part a lack of training and education surrounding gendered conceptions of economics. In particular, the shift in norms such that women continue to be responsible for all the domestic private sphere labour as well as undertaking public economic support for their families, independent of male aid increases rather than decreases burdens on already limited persons.


title: Microfinance

text: If there were to be an exchange of labour, or if women's income were supplemental rather than essential to household maintenance, there might be some truth to claims of establishing long-term businesses; however when so constrained it is impossible for women to do more than pay off a current loan only to take on another in a cyclic pattern which is beneficial to the financier but hardly to the borrower. This gender essentializing crosses over from institutionalized lenders such as the Grameen Bank into interpersonal direct lending through charitable crowd-funding operations, such as Kiva. More recently, the popularity of non-profit global online lending has grown, suggesting that a redress of gender norms might be instituted through individual selection fomented by the processes of such programs, but the reality is as yet uncertain. Studies have noted that the likelihood of lending to women, individually or in groups, is 38% higher than rates of lending to men.


title: Microfinance

text: This is also due to a general trend for interpersonal microfinance relations to be conducted on grounds of similarity and internal/external recognition: lenders want to see something familiar, something supportable in potential borrowers, so an emphasis on family, goals of education and health, and a commitment to community all achieve positive results from prospective financiers. Unfortunately, these labels disproportionately align with women rather than men, particularly in the developing world. The result is that microfinance continues to rely on restrictive gender norms rather than seek to subvert them through economic redress in terms of foundation change: training, business management and financial education are all elements which might be included in parameters of female-aimed loans and until they are the fundamental reality of women as a disadvantaged section of societies in developing states will go untested.


title: Microfinance

text: Microfinancing produces many benefits for poverty stricken and low-income households. One of the benefits is that it is very accessible. Banks today simply won't extend loans to those with little to no assets, and generally don't engage in small size loans typically associated with microfinancing. Through microfinancing small loans are produced and accessible. Microfinancing is based on the philosophy that even small amounts of credit can help end the cycle of poverty. Another benefit produced from the microfinancing initiative is that it presents opportunities, such as extending education and jobs. Families receiving microfinancing are less likely to pull their children out of school for economic reasons. As well, in relation to employment, people are more likely to open small businesses that will aid the creation of new jobs. Overall, the benefits outline that the microfinancing initiative is set out to improve the standard of living amongst impoverished communities.


title: Microfinance

text: There are also many social and financial challenges for microfinance initiatives. For example, more articulate and better-off community members may cheat poorer or less-educated neighbours. This may occur intentionally or inadvertently through loosely run organizations. As a result, many microfinance initiatives require a large amount of social capital or trust in order to work effectively. The ability of poorer people to save may also fluctuate over time as unexpected costs may take priority which could result in them being able to save little or nothing some weeks. Rates of inflation may cause funds to lose their value, thus financially harming the saver and not benefiting the collector.


title: Microfinance

text: While the success of the Grameen Bank (which now serves over 7 million poor Bangladeshi women) has inspired the world, it has proved difficult to replicate this success. In nations with lower population densities, meeting the operating costs of a retail branch by serving nearby customers has proven considerably more challenging. Hans Dieter Seibel, board member of the European Microfinance Platform, is in favour of the group model. This particular model (used by many Microfinance institutions) makes financial sense, he says, because it reduces transaction costs. Microfinance programmes also need to be based on local funds.


title: Microfinance

text: Poor people borrow from informal moneylenders and save with informal collectors. They receive loans and grants from charities. They buy insurance from state-owned companies. They receive funds transfers through formal or informal remittance networks. It is not easy to distinguish microfinance from similar activities. It could be claimed that a government that orders state banks to open deposit accounts for poor consumers, or a moneylender that engages in usury, or a charity that runs a heifer pool are engaged in microfinance. Ensuring financial services to poor people is best done by expanding the number of financial institutions available to them, as well as by strengthening the capacity of those institutions. In recent years there has also been increasing emphasis on expanding the diversity of institutions, since different institutions serve different needs.


title: Microfinance

text: Some principles that summarize a century and a half of development practice were encapsulated in 2004 by CGAP and endorsed by the Group of Eight leaders at the G8 Summit on 10 June 2004:


title: Microfinance

text: Microfinance is considered a tool for socio-economic development, and can be clearly distinguished from charity. Families who are destitute, or so poor they are unlikely to be able to generate the cash flow required to repay a loan, should be recipients of charity. Others are best served by financial institutions.


title: Microfinance

text: No systematic effort to map the distribution of microfinance has yet been undertaken. A benchmark was established by an analysis of 'alternative financial institutions' in the developing world in 2004. The authors counted approximately 665 million client accounts at over 3,000 institutions that are serving people who are poorer than those served by the commercial banks. Of these accounts, 120 million were with institutions normally understood to practice microfinance. Reflecting the diverse historical roots of the movement, however, they also included postal savings banks (318 million accounts), state agricultural and development banks (172 million accounts), financial cooperatives and credit unions (35 million accounts) and specialized rural banks (19 million accounts).


title: Microfinance

text: Regionally, the highest concentration of these accounts was in India (188 million accounts representing 18% of the total national population). The lowest concentrations were in Latin America and the Caribbean (14 million accounts representing 3% of the total population) and Africa (27 million accounts representing 4% of the total population, with the highest rate of penetration in West Africa, and the highest growth rate in Eastern and Southern Africa ). Considering that most bank clients in the developed world need several active accounts to keep their affairs in order, these figures indicate that the task the microfinance movement has set for itself is still very far from finished.


title: Microfinance

text: By type of service, "savings accounts in alternative finance institutions outnumber loans by about four to one. This is a worldwide pattern that does not vary much by region."


title: Microfinance

text: An important source of detailed data on selected microfinance institutions is the "MicroBanking Bulletin", which is published by Microfinance Information Exchange. At the end of 2009, it was tracking 1,084 MFIs that were serving 74 million borrowers ($38 billion in outstanding loans) and 67 million savers ($23 billion in deposits).


title: Microfinance

text: Another source of information regarding the environment of microfinance is the Global Microscope on the Microfinance Business Environment, prepared by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), the Inter-American Development Bank, and others. The 2011 report contains information on the environment of microfinance in 55 countries among two categories, the regulatory framework and the supporting institutional framework. This publication, also known as the Microscope, was first developed in 2007, focusing only on Latin America and the Caribbean, but by 2009, this report had become a global study.


title: Microfinance

text: As yet there are no studies that indicate the scale or distribution of 'informal' microfinance organizations like ROSCA's and informal associations that help people manage costs like weddings, funerals and sickness. Numerous case studies have been published, however, indicating that these organizations, which are generally designed and managed by poor people themselves with little outside help, operate in most countries in the developing world.


title: Microfinance

text: Help can come in the form of more and better-qualified staff, thus higher education is needed for microfinance institutions. This has begun in some universities, as Oliver Schmidt describes. Mind the management gap


title: Microfinance

text: In recent years, there have been calls for better understanding of the ecosystem of Microfinance. The practitioners and researchers felt that it was important to understand the ecosystem in which microfinance institutions operated in order for the market system actors and facilitators to understand what they have to do to achieve their objectives of participating in the ecosystem. Professors Debapratim Purkayastha, Trilochan Tripathy and Biswajit Das have designed a model for the ecosystem of microfinance institutions (MFIs) in India. The researchers mapped the ecosystem and found the ecosystem to be very complicated, with complex interactions among numerous actors themselves, and their environment. This ecosystem framework can be used by MFIs to understand the ecosystem of microfinance and formulate strategy. It can also help other stakeholders such as donors, investors, banks, government, etc. to formulate their own strategies relating to this sector.


title: Microfinance

text: In Canada and the US, microfinance organizations target marginalized populations unable to access mainstream bank financing. Close to 8% of Americans are unbanked, meaning around 9 million are without any kind of bank account or formal financial services. Most of these institutions are structured as nonprofit organizations. Microloans in the U.S. context is defined as the extension of credit up to $50,000. In Canada, CRA guidelines restrict microfinance loans to a maximum of $25,000. The average microfinance loan size in the US is US$9,732, ten times the size of an average microfinance loan in developing countries (US$973).


title: Microfinance

text: While all microfinance institutions aim at increasing incomes and employment, in developing countries the empowerment of women, improved nutrition and improved education of the borrower's children are frequently aims of microfinance institutions. In the US and Canada, aims of microfinance include the graduation of recipients from welfare programs and an improvement in their credit rating. In the US, microfinance has created jobs directly and indirectly, as 60% of borrowers were able to hire others. According to reports, every domestic microfinance loan creates 2.4 jobs. These entrepreneurs provide wages that are, on average, 25% higher than minimum wage. Small business loans eventually allow small business owners to make their businesses their primary source of income, with 67% of the borrowers showing a significant increase in their income as a result of their participation in certain micro-loan programs. In addition, these business owners are able to improve their housing situation, 70% indicating their housing has improved. Ultimately, many of the small business owners that use social funding are able to graduate from government funding.


title: Microfinance

text: In the late 1980s, microfinance institutions developed in the United States. They served low-income and marginalized minority communities. By 2007, there were 500 microfinance organizations operating in the US with 200 lending capital.


title: Microfinance

text: These factors incentivized the public and private supports to have microlending activity in the United States.


title: Microfinance

text: Microfinance in Canada took shape through the development of credit unions. These credit unions provided financial services to the Canadians who could not get access to traditional financial means. Two separate branches of credit unions developed in Canada to serve the financially marginalized segment of the population. Alphonse Desjardins introduced the establishment of savings and credit services in late 1900 to the Quebecois who did not have financial access. Approximately 30 years later Father Moses Coady introduced credit unions to Nova Scotia. These were the models of the modern institutions still present in Canada today.


title: Microfinance

text: Efforts to transfer specific microfinance innovations such as solidarity lending from developing countries to Canada have met with little success.


title: Microfinance

text: Founded by Sandra Rotman in 2009, Rise is a Rotman and CAMH initiative that provides small business loans, leases, and lines of credit to entrepreneurs with mental health and/or addiction challenges.


title: Microfinance

text: Formed in 2005 through the merging of the Civil Service Savings and Loan Society and the Metro Credit Union, Alterna is a financial alternative to Canadians. Their banking policy is based on cooperative values and expert financial advising.


title: Microfinance

text: Based in Toronto, Ontario, ACCESS is a Canadian charity that helps entrepreneurs without collateral or credit history find affordable small loans.


title: Microfinance

text: Created to help eradicate poverty, Montreal Community Loan Fund provides accessible credit and technical support to entrepreneurs with low income or credit for start-ups or expansion of organizations that cannot access traditional forms of credit.


title: Microfinance

text: Using the community economic development approach, Momentum offers opportunities to people living in poverty in Calgary. Momentum provides individuals and families who want to better their financial situation take control of finances, become computer literate, secure employment, borrow and repay loans for business, and purchase homes.


title: Microfinance

text: Complications specific to Canada include the need for loans of a substantial size in comparison to the ones typically seen in many international microfinance initiatives. Microfinance is also limited by the rules and limitations surrounding money-lending. For example, Canada Revenue Agency limits the loans made in these sort of transactions to a maximum of $25,000. As a result, many people look to banks to provide these loans. Also, microfinance in Canada is driven by profit which, as a result, fails to advance the social development of community members. Within marginalized or impoverished Canadian communities, banks may not be readily accessible to deposit or take out funds. These banks which would have charged little or no interest on small amounts of cash are replaced by lending companies. Here, these companies may charge extremely large interest rates to marginalized community members thus increasing the cycle of poverty and profiting off of another's loss.


title: Microfinance

text: In Canada, microfinancing competes with pay-day loans institutions which take advantage of marginalized and low-income individuals by charging extremely high, predatory interest rates. Communities with low social capital often don't have the networks to implement and support microfinance initiatives, leading to the proliferation of pay day loan institutions. Pay day loan companies are unlike traditional microfinance in that they don't encourage collectivism and social capital building in low income communities, however exist solely for profit.


title: Microfinance

text: There are several professional networks of microfinance institutions, and organisations that support microfinance and financial inclusion.


title: Microfinance

text: The Microfinance Network is a network of 20 to 25 of the world's largest microfinance institutions, spread across Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Europe and Latin America. Established in 1993, the Microfinance Network provided support to members that helped steer many industry leaders to sustainability, and profitability in many of their largest markets. Today as the sector enters a new period of transition, with the rise of digital financial technology that increasingly competes with traditional microfinance institutions, the Microfinance Network provides a space to discuss opportunities and challenges that arise from emerging technological innovations in inclusive finance. The Microfinance Network convenes once a year. Members include Al Majmoua, BRAC, BancoSol, Gentera, Kamurj, LAPO, and SOGESOL.


title: Microfinance

text: Microfinance services including Easy Paisa by Telenor and Temeer Microfinance Bank, Jazz Cash by Jazz Telecom, and Zindigi have all been introduced by various telecom companies in Pakistan. These services provide lending services, retailer services, and online money transfer capabilities.


title: Microfinance

text: The Partnership for Responsible Financial, previously known as the Microfinance CEO Working Group, is a collaborative effort of leading international organizations and their CEOs active in the microfinance and inclusive finance space, including direct microfinance practitioners, and microfinance funders. It consists of 10 members, including Accion, Aga Khan Agency for Microfinance, BRAC, CARE USA, FINCA Impact Finance, Grameen Foundation, Opportunity International, Pro Mujer, Vision Fund International and Women's World Banking. Harnessing the power of the CEOs and their senior managers, the PRFI advocates for responsible financial services and seeks catalytic opportunities to accelerate financial access to the unserved. As part of this focus, PRFI is responsible for setting up the Smart Campaign, in response to negative microfinance practices that indicated the mistreatment of clients in certain markets. The network is made up of the CEO working group, that meet quarterly and several subcommittee working groups dedicated to communications, social performance, digital financial services, and legal and human resources issues...


title: Microfinance

text: The European Microfinance Network (EMN) was established in response to many legal and political obstacles affecting the microfinance sector in Europe. The Network is involved in advocacy on a wide range of issues related to microfinance, micro-enterprises, social and financial exclusion, self-employment and employment creation. Its main activity is the organisation of its annual conference, which has taken place each year since 2004. The EMN has a wide network of over 100 members.


title: Microfinance

text: The Microfinance Centre (MFC) has a membership of over 100 organisations, and is particularly strong in Eastern Europe, the Balkans and Central Asia.


title: Microfinance

text: The Africa Microfinance Network (AFMIN) is an association of microfinance networks in Africa resulting from an initiative led by African microfinance practitioners to create and/or strengthen country-level microfinance networks for the purpose of establishing shared performance standards, institutional capacity and policy change.


title: Microfinance

text: AFMIN was formally launched in November 2000 and has established its secretariat in Abidjan (Republic of Côte d'Ivoire), where AFMIN is legally recognized as an international Non-Governmental Organisation pursuant to Ivorian laws. Because of the political unrest in Côte d'Ivoire, AFMIN temporarily relocated its office to Cotonou in Benin.


title: Microfinance

text: The microcredit movement that began in the 1970s has emerged and morphed into a 'financial systems' approach for creating universal financial inclusion. While Grameen model of delivering small credit achieved a great deal, especially in urban and near-urban areas and with entrepreneurial families, its progress in delivering financial services in less densely populated rural areas was slow; creating the need for many and multiple models to emerge across the globe. The terms have evolved from Microcredit, to Microfinance, and now Financial Inclusion. Specialized microfinance institutions (MFIs) continue to expand their services, collaborating and competing with banks, credit unions, mobile money, and other informal and formal member owned institutions.


title: Microfinance

text: The new financial systems approach pragmatically acknowledges the richness of centuries of microfinance history and the immense diversity of institutions serving poor people in developing and developed economies today. It is also rooted in an increasing awareness of diversity of the financial service needs of the world's poorest people, and the diverse settings in which they live and work. It also acknowledges that quality and range of financial services are also important for the banking system to achieve fuller and deeper financial inclusion, for all. Central banks and mainstream banks are now more intimately engaging in the financial inclusion agenda than ever before, though it is a long road, with 35–40% of world's adults remaining outside formal banking system, and many more remaining "under-banked". Advent of mobile-phone-based money management and digital finance is changing the scenario fast; though "social distance" between the economically poor or social marginalized and the banking system remains large.


title: Microfinance

text: With appropriate regulation and supervision, each of these institutional types can bring leverage to solving the microfinance problem. For example, efforts are being made to link self-help groups to commercial banks, to network member-owned organizations together to achieve economies of scale and scope, and to support efforts by commercial banks to 'down-scale' by integrating mobile banking and e-payment technologies into their extensive branch networks.


title: Microfinance

text: Brigit Helms in her book "Access for All: Building Inclusive Financial Systems", distinguishes between four general categories of microfinance providers, and argues for a pro-active strategy of engagement with all of them to help them achieve the goals of the microfinance movement.


title: Microfinance

text: Due to the unbalanced emphasis on credit at the expense of microsavings, as well as a desire to link Western investors to the sector, peer-to-peer platforms have developed to expand the availability of microcredit through individual lenders in the developed world. New platforms that connect lenders to micro-entrepreneurs are emerging on the Web ("peer-to-peer sponsors"), for example MYC4, Kiva, Zidisha, myELEN, Opportunity International and the Microloan Foundation. Another Web-based microlender United Prosperity uses a variation on the usual microlending model; with United Prosperity the micro-lender provides a guarantee to a local bank which then lends back double that amount to the micro-entrepreneur. In 2009, the US-based nonprofit Zidisha became the first peer-to-peer microlending platform to link lenders and borrowers directly across international borders without local intermediaries.


title: Microfinance

text: The volume channeled through Kiva's peer-to-peer platform is about $100 million as of November 2009 (Kiva facilitates approximately $5M in loans each month). In comparison, the needs for microcredit are estimated about 250 bn USD as of end 2006.


title: Microfinance

text: Most experts agree that these funds must be sourced locally in countries that are originating microcredit, to reduce transaction costs and exchange rate risks.


title: Microfinance

text: There have been problems with disclosure on peer-to-peer sites, with some reporting interest rates of borrowers using the flat rate methodology instead of the familiar banking Annual Percentage Rate. The use of flat rates, which has been outlawed among regulated financial institutions in developed countries, can confuse individual lenders into believing their borrower is paying a lower interest rate than, in fact, they are. In the summer of 2017, within the framework of the joint project of the Central Bank of Russia and Yandex, a special check mark (a green circle with a tick and 'State MFO Register' text box) appeared search results on the Yandex search engine, informing the consumer that the company's financial services are offered on the marked website, which has the status of a microfinance organization.


title: Microfinance

text: There are currently a few social interventions that have been combined with micro financing to increase awareness of HIV/AIDS. Such interventions like the "Intervention with Microfinance for AIDS and Gender Equity" (IMAGE) which incorporates microfinancing with "The Sisters-for-Life" program a participatory program that educates on different gender roles, gender-based violence, and HIV/AIDS infections to strengthen the communication skills and leadership of women "The Sisters-for-Life" program has two phases; phase one consists of ten one-hour training programs with a facilitator, and phase two consists of identifying a leader amongst the group, training them further, and allowing them to implement an action plan to their respective centres.


title: Microfinance

text: Microfinance has also been combined with business education and with other packages of health interventions. A project undertaken in Peru by Innovations for Poverty Action found that those borrowers randomly selected to receive financial training as part of their borrowing group meetings had higher profits, although there was not a reduction in "the proportion who reported having problems in their business". Pro Mujer, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) with operations in five Latin American countries, combines microfinance and healthcare. This approach shows that microfinance can not only help businesses to prosper; it can also foster human development and social security. Pro Mujer uses a "one-stop shop" approach, which means in one building, the clients find financial services, business training, empowerment advice and healthcare services combined.


title: Microfinance

text: According to technology analyst David Garrity, Microfinance and Mobile Financial Services (MFS) have provided marginal populations with access to basic financial services, including savings programs and insurance policies.


title: Microfinance

text: Most criticisms of microfinance have actually been criticisms of microcredit. Criticism focuses on the impact on poverty, the level of interest rates, high profits, overindebtedness and suicides. Other criticism include the role of foreign donors and working conditions in companies affiliated to microfinance institutions, particularly in Bangladesh.


title: Microfinance

text: The impact of microcredit is a subject of much controversy. Proponents state that it reduces poverty through higher employment and higher incomes. This is expected to lead to improved nutrition and improved education of the borrowers' children. Some argue that microcredit empowers women. In the US and Canada, it is argued that microcredit helps recipients to graduate from welfare programs.


title: Microfinance

text: Critics say that microcredit has not increased incomes, but has driven poor households into a debt trap, in some cases even leading to suicide. They add that the money from loans is often used for durable consumer goods or consumption instead of being used for productive investments, that it fails to empower women, and that it has not improved health or education. Moreover, as the access to micro-loans is widespread, borrowers tend to acquire several loans from different companies, making it nearly impossible to pay the debt back. As a result of such tragic events, microfinance institutions in India have agreed on setting an interest rate ceiling of 15 percent. This is important because microfinance loan recipients have a higher level of security in repaying the loans and a lower level of risk in failing to repay them.


title: Microfinance

text: Unintended consequences of microfinance include informal intermediaton: That is, some entrepreneurial borrowers become informal intermediaries between microfinance initiatives and poorer micro-entrepreneurs. Those who more easily qualify for microfinance split loans into smaller credit to even poorer borrowers. Informal intermediation ranges from casual intermediaries at the good or benign end of the spectrum to 'loan sharks' at the professional and sometimes criminal end of the spectrum.


title: Microfinance

text: Microcredit has also received criticism for inducing market saturation and fueling problematically competitive, rather than collaborative business communities. The influx of supply generated by the creation of new microcredit-fueled-businesses can be difficult for small economies to absorb. The owners of micro-enterprises within such communities often have limited skill sets and resources available. This can cause a "copycat" phenomenon among small business due to the limited variation in products and services offerings. The high number of individuals selling similar products and services can cause new entrepreneurs to be subject to cutthroat competition over a demand that has not expanded proportionally with the supply.


title: Microfinance

text: Mission drift refers to the phenomena through which the MFIs or the micro finance institutions increasingly try to cater to customers who are better off than their original customers, primarily the poor families. Roy Mersland and R. Øystein Strøm in their research on mission drift suggest that this selection bias can come not only through an increase in the average loan size, which allows for financially stronger individuals to get the loans, but also through the MFI's particular lending methodology, main market of operation, or even the gender bias as further mission drift measures. And as it may follow, this selective funding would lead to lower risks and lower costs for the firm.


title: Microfinance

text: However, economists Beatriz Armendáriz and Ariane Szafarz suggests that this phenomenon is not driven by cost minimization alone. She suggests that it happens because of the interplay between the company's mission, the cost differential between poor and unbanked wealthier clients and region specific characteristics pertaining the heterogeneity of their clientele. But in either way, this problem of selective funding leads to an ethical tradeoff where on one hand there is an economic reason for the company to restrict its loans to only the individuals who qualify the standards, and on the other hand there is an ethical responsibility to help the poor people get out of poverty through the provision of capital.


title: Microfinance

text: The role of donors has also been questioned. CGAP recently commented that: "a large proportion of the money they spend is not effective, either because it gets hung up in unsuccessful and often complicated funding mechanisms (for example, a government apex facility), or it goes to partners that are not held accountable for performance. In some cases, poorly conceived programs have slowed the development of inclusive financial systems by distorting markets and displacing domestic commercial initiatives with cheap or free money."


title: Microfinance

text: There has also been criticism of microlenders for not taking more responsibility for the working conditions of poor households, particularly when borrowers become quasi-wage labourers, selling crafts or agricultural produce through an organization controlled by the MFI. The desire of MFIs to help their borrower diversify and increase their incomes has sparked this type of relationship in several countries, most notably Bangladesh, where hundreds of thousands of borrowers effectively work as wage labourers for the marketing subsidiaries of Grameen Bank or BRAC. Critics maintain that there are few if any rules or standards in these cases governing working hours, holidays, working conditions, safety or child labour, and few inspection regimes to correct abuses. Some of these concerns have been taken up by unions and socially responsible investment advocates.


title: Microfinance

text: In Nigeria cases of fraud have been reported. Dubious banks promised their clients outrageous interest rates. These banks were closed shortly after clients had deposited money and their deposits were lost. The officials of Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) have warned customers about so-called "wonder banks". One initiative to prevent people from depositing money to wonder banks is the mini-series "e go better" that warns about the practices of these wonder banks.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: The planet Mars has been explored remotely by spacecraft. Probes sent from Earth, beginning in the late 20th century, have yielded a large increase in knowledge about the Martian system, focused primarily on understanding its geology and habitability potential. Engineering interplanetary journeys is complicated and the exploration of Mars has experienced a high failure rate, especially the early attempts. Roughly sixty percent of all spacecraft destined for Mars failed before completing their missions and some failed before their observations could begin. Some missions have met with unexpected success, such as the twin Mars Exploration Rovers, "Spirit" and "Opportunity" which operated for years beyond their specification.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: , there are three operational rovers on the surface of Mars, the "Curiosity" and "Perseverance" rovers, both operated by the United States of America space agency NASA, as well as the "Zhurong" rover, part of the "Tianwen-1" mission by the China National Space Administration (CNSA). There are eight orbiters surveying the planet: "Mars Odyssey", "Mars Express", "Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter", "Mars Orbiter Mission (Mangalyaan)", MAVEN, the Trace Gas Orbiter, the Hope Mars Mission, and the "Tianwen-1" orbiter, which have contributed massive amounts of information about Mars. The stationary lander "InSight" is investigating the deep interior of Mars. Various sample return missions are being planned to pick up the samples obtained by the Perseverance rover. An attempted return mission for Mars' moon Phobos ("Fobos-Grunt") failed at launch in 2011. In all, there are 13 probes currently surveying Mars including the "Ingenuity" helicopter, which is scouting sites for Perseverance to study.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: Mars has long been the subject of human interest. Early telescopic observations revealed color changes on the surface that were attributed to seasonal vegetation and apparent linear features were ascribed to intelligent design. Further telescopic observations found two moons, Phobos and Deimos, polar ice caps and the feature now known as Olympus Mons, the Solar System's tallest mountain. The discoveries piqued further interest in the study and exploration of the red planet. Mars is a rocky planet, like Earth, that formed around the same time, yet with only half the diameter of Earth, and a far thinner atmosphere; it has a cold and desert-like surface.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: One way the surface of Mars has been categorized, is by thirty "quadrangles", with each quadrangle named for a prominent physiographic feature within that quadrangle.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: The minimum-energy launch windows for a Martian expedition occur at intervals of approximately two years and two months (specifically 780 days, the planet's synodic period with respect to Earth). In addition, the lowest available transfer energy varies on a roughly 16-year cycle. For example, a minimum occurred in the 1969 and 1971 launch windows, rising to a peak in the late 1970s, and hitting another low in 1986 and 1988.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: Starting in 1960, the Soviets launched a series of probes to Mars including the first intended flybys and hard (impact) landing (Mars 1962B). The first successful flyby of Mars was on 14–15 July 1965, by NASA's Mariner 4. On November 14, 1971, Mariner 9 became the first space probe to orbit another planet when it entered into orbit around Mars. The amount of data returned by probes increased dramatically as technology improved.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: The first to contact the surface were two Soviet probes: Mars 2 lander on November 27 and Mars 3 lander on December 2, 1971Mars 2 failed during descent and Mars 3 about twenty seconds after the first Martian soft landing. Mars 6 failed during descent but did return some corrupted atmospheric data in 1974. The 1975 NASA launches of the Viking program consisted of two orbiters, each with a lander that successfully soft landed in 1976. "Viking 1" remained operational for six years, "Viking 2" for three. The Viking landers relayed the first color panoramas of Mars.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: The Soviet probes Phobos 1 and 2 were sent to Mars in 1988 to study Mars and its two moons, with a focus on Phobos. Phobos 1 lost contact on the way to Mars. Phobos 2, while successfully photographing Mars and Phobos, failed before it was set to release two landers to the surface of Phobos.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: Mars has a reputation as a difficult space exploration target; just 25 of 55 missions through 2019, or 45.5%, have been fully successful, with a further three partially successful and partially failures. However, of the sixteen missions since 2001, twelve have been successful and eight of these are still operational.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: Missions that ended prematurely after Phobos 1 and 2 (1988) include (see Probing difficulties section for more details):


title: Exploration of Mars

text: Following the 1993 failure of the Mars Observer orbiter, the NASA Mars Global Surveyor achieved Mars orbit in 1997. This mission was a complete success, having finished its primary mapping mission in early 2001. Contact was lost with the probe in November 2006 during its third extended program, spending exactly 10 operational years in space. The NASA Mars Pathfinder, carrying a robotic exploration vehicle "Sojourner", landed in the Ares Vallis on Mars in the summer of 1997, returning many images.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: NASA's "Mars Odyssey" orbiter entered Mars orbit in 2001. "Odyssey" Gamma Ray Spectrometer detected significant amounts of hydrogen in the upper metre or so of regolith on Mars. This hydrogen is thought to be contained in large deposits of water ice.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: The "Mars Express" mission of the European Space Agency (ESA) reached Mars in 2003. It carried the "Beagle 2" lander, which was not heard from after being released and was declared lost in February 2004. "Beagle 2" was located in January 2015 by HiRise camera on NASA's "Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter" (MRO) having landed safely but failed to fully deploy its solar panels and antenna. In early 2004, the "Mars Express" Planetary Fourier Spectrometer team announced the orbiter had detected methane in the Martian atmosphere, a potential biosignature. ESA announced in June 2006 the discovery of aurorae on Mars by the "Mars Express".


title: Exploration of Mars

text: In January 2004, the NASA twin Mars Exploration Rovers named "Spirit" (MER-A) and "Opportunity" (MER-B) landed on the surface of Mars. Both have met and exceeded all their science objectives. Among the most significant scientific returns has been conclusive evidence that liquid water existed at some time in the past at both landing sites. Martian dust devils and windstorms have occasionally cleaned both rovers' solar panels, and thus increased their lifespan. "Spirit" rover (MER-A) was active until 2010, when it stopped sending data because it got stuck in a sand dune and was unable to reorient itself to recharge its batteries.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: On 10 March 2006, NASA's "Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter" (MRO) probe arrived in orbit to conduct a two-year science survey. The orbiter began mapping the Martian terrain and weather to find suitable landing sites for upcoming lander missions. The MRO captured the first image of a series of active avalanches near the planet's north pole in 2008.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: "Rosetta" came within 250 km of Mars during its 2007 flyby. "Dawn" flew by Mars in February 2009 for a gravity assist on its way to investigate Vesta and Ceres.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: "Phoenix" landed on the north polar region of Mars on May 25, 2008. Its robotic arm dug into the Martian soil and the presence of water ice was confirmed on June 20, 2008. The mission concluded on November 10, 2008 after contact was lost. In 2008, the price of transporting material from the surface of Earth to the surface of Mars was approximately US$309,000 per kilogram.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: The Mars Science Laboratory mission was launched on November 26, 2011 and it delivered the "Curiosity" rover on the surface of Mars on August 6, 2012 UTC. It is larger and more advanced than the Mars Exploration Rovers, with a velocity of up to 90 meters per hour (295 feet per hour). Experiments include a laser chemical sampler that can deduce the composition of rocks at a distance of 7 meters.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: MAVEN orbiter was launched on 18 November 2013, and on 22 September 2014, it was injected into an areocentric elliptic orbit 6,200 km (3,900 mi) by 150 km (93 mi) above the planet's surface to study its atmosphere. Mission goals include determining how the planet's atmosphere and water, presumed to have once been substantial, were lost over time.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) launched their "Mars Orbiter Mission" (MOM) on November 5, 2013, and it was inserted into Mars orbit on September 24, 2014. India's ISRO is the fourth space agency to reach Mars, after the Soviet space program, NASA and ESA. India successfully placed a spacecraft into Mars orbit, and became the first country to do so in its maiden attempt.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: The "ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter" arrived at Mars in 2016 and deployed the Schiaparelli EDM lander, a test lander. Schiaparelli crashed on surface, but it transmitted key data during its parachute descent, so the test was declared a partial success.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: The following entails a brief overview of Mars exploration, oriented towards orbiters and flybys; see also Mars landing and Mars rover.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: Between 1960 and 1969, the Soviet Union launched nine probes intended to reach Mars. They all failed: three at launch; three failed to reach near-Earth orbit; one during the burn to put the spacecraft into trans-Mars trajectory; and two during the interplanetary orbit.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: The Mars 1M programs (sometimes dubbed Marsnik in Western media) was the first Soviet unmanned spacecraft interplanetary exploration program, which consisted of two flyby probes launched towards Mars in October 1960, Mars 1960A and Mars 1960B (also known as "Korabl 4" and "Korabl 5" respectively). After launch, the third stage pumps on both launchers were unable to develop enough pressure to commence ignition, so Earth parking orbit was not achieved. The spacecraft reached an altitude of 120 km before reentry.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: Mars 1962A was a Mars flyby mission, launched on October 24, 1962 and Mars 1962B an intended first Mars lander mission, launched in late December of the same year (1962). Both failed from either breaking up as they were going into Earth orbit or having the upper stage explode in orbit during the burn to put the spacecraft into trans-Mars trajectory.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: Mars 1 (1962 Beta Nu 1), an automatic interplanetary spacecraft launched to Mars on November 1, 1962, was the first probe of the Soviet Mars probe program to achieve interplanetary orbit. Mars 1 was intended to fly by the planet at a distance of about 11,000 km and take images of the surface as well as send back data on cosmic radiation, micrometeoroid impacts and Mars' magnetic field, radiation environment, atmospheric structure, and possible organic compounds. Sixty-one radio transmissions were held, initially at 2-day intervals and later at 5-day intervals, from which a large amount of interplanetary data was collected. On 21 March 1963, when the spacecraft was at a distance of 106,760,000 km from Earth, on its way to Mars, communications ceased due to failure of its antenna orientation system.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: In 1964, both Soviet probe launches, of Zond 1964A on June 4, and Zond 2 on November 30, (part of the Zond program), resulted in failures. Zond 1964A had a failure at launch, while communication was lost with Zond 2 en route to Mars after a mid-course maneuver, in early May 1965.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: In 1969, and as part of the Mars probe program, the Soviet Union prepared two identical 5-ton orbiters called M-69, dubbed by NASA as Mars 1969A and Mars 1969B. Both probes were lost in launch-related complications with the newly developed Proton rocket.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: The USSR intended to have the first artificial satellite of Mars beating the planned American Mariner 8 and Mariner 9 Mars orbiters. In May 1971, one day after Mariner 8 malfunctioned at launch and failed to reach orbit, Cosmos 419 (Mars 1971C), a heavy probe of the Soviet Mars program M-71, also failed to launch. This spacecraft was designed as an orbiter only, while the next two probes of project M-71, Mars 2 and Mars 3, were multipurpose combinations of an orbiter and a lander with small skis-walking rovers that would be the first planet rovers outside the Moon. They were successfully launched in mid-May 1971 and reached Mars about seven months later. On November 27, 1971 the lander of Mars 2 crash-landed due to an on-board computer malfunction and became the first man-made object to reach the surface of Mars. On 2 December 1971, the Mars 3 lander became the first spacecraft to achieve a soft landing, but its transmission was interrupted after 14.5 seconds.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: The Mars 2 and 3 orbiters sent back a relatively large volume of data covering the period from December 1971 to March 1972, although transmissions continued through to August. By 22 August 1972, after sending back data and a total of 60 pictures, Mars 2 and 3 concluded their missions. The images and data enabled creation of surface relief maps, and gave information on the Martian gravity and magnetic fields.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: In 1973, the Soviet Union sent four more probes to Mars: the Mars 4 and Mars 5 orbiters and the Mars 6 and Mars 7 flyby/lander combinations. All missions except Mars 7 sent back data, with Mars 5 being most successful. Mars 5 transmitted just 60 images before a loss of pressurization in the transmitter housing ended the mission. Mars 6 lander transmitted data during descent, but failed upon impact. Mars 4 flew by the planet at a range of 2200 km returning one swath of pictures and radio occultation data, which constituted the first detection of the nightside ionosphere on Mars. Mars 7 probe separated prematurely from the carrying vehicle due to a problem in the operation of one of the onboard systems (attitude control or retro-rockets) and missed the planet by .


title: Exploration of Mars

text: In 1964, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory made two attempts at reaching Mars. Mariner 3 and Mariner 4 were identical spacecraft designed to carry out the first flybys of Mars. Mariner 3 was launched on November 5, 1964, but the shroud encasing the spacecraft atop its rocket failed to open properly, dooming the mission. Three weeks later, on November 28, 1964, Mariner 4 was launched successfully on a 7-month voyage to Mars.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: Mariner 4 flew past Mars on July 14, 1965, providing the first close-up photographs of another planet. The pictures, gradually played back to Earth from a small tape recorder on the probe, showed impact craters. It provided radically more accurate data about the planet; a surface atmospheric pressure of about 1% of Earth's and daytime temperatures of −100 °C (−148 °F) were estimated. No magnetic field or Martian radiation belts were detected. The new data meant redesigns for then planned Martian landers, and showed life would have a more difficult time surviving there than previously anticipated.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: NASA continued the Mariner program with another pair of Mars flyby probes, Mariner 6 and 7. They were sent at the next launch window, and reached the planet in 1969. During the following launch window the Mariner program again suffered the loss of one of a pair of probes. Mariner 9 successfully entered orbit about Mars, the first spacecraft ever to do so, after the launch time failure of its sister ship, Mariner 8. When Mariner 9 reached Mars in 1971, it and two Soviet orbiters (Mars 2 and Mars 3) found that a planet-wide dust storm was in progress. The mission controllers used the time spent waiting for the storm to clear to have the probe rendezvous with, and photograph, Phobos. When the storm cleared sufficiently for Mars' surface to be photographed by Mariner 9, the pictures returned represented a substantial advance over previous missions. These pictures were the first to offer more detailed evidence that liquid water might at one time have flowed on the planetary surface. They also finally discerned the true nature of many Martian albedo features. For example, Nix Olympica was one of only a few features that could be seen during the planetary duststorm, revealing it to be the highest mountain (volcano, to be exact) on any planet in the entire Solar System, and leading to its reclassification as Olympus Mons.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: The Viking program launched "Viking 1" and "Viking 2" spacecraft to Mars in 1975; The program consisted of two orbiters and two landers – these were the second and third spacecraft to successfully land on Mars.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: The primary scientific objectives of the lander mission were to search for biosignatures and observe meteorologic, seismic and magnetic properties of Mars. The results of the biological experiments on board the Viking landers remain inconclusive, with a reanalysis of the Viking data published in 2012 suggesting signs of microbial life on Mars.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: The Viking orbiters revealed that large floods of water carved deep valleys, eroded grooves into bedrock, and traveled thousands of kilometers. Areas of branched streams, in the southern hemisphere, suggest that rain once fell.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: "Mars Pathfinder" was a U.S. spacecraft that landed a base station with a roving probe on Mars on July 4, 1997. It consisted of a lander and a small wheeled robotic rover named "Sojourner", which was the first rover to operate on the surface of Mars. In addition to scientific objectives, the Mars Pathfinder mission was also a "proof-of-concept" for various technologies, such as an airbag landing system and automated obstacle avoidance, both later exploited by the Mars Exploration Rovers.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: After the 1992 failure of NASA's "Mars Observer" orbiter, NASA retooled and launched "Mars Global Surveyor" (MGS). "Mars Global Surveyor" launched on November 7, 1996, and entered orbit on September 12, 1997. After a year and a half trimming its orbit from a looping ellipse to a circular track around the planet, the spacecraft began its primary mapping mission in March 1999. It observed the planet from a low-altitude, nearly polar orbit over the course of one complete Martian year, the equivalent of nearly two Earth years. "Mars Global Surveyor" completed its primary mission on January 31, 2001, and completed several extended mission phases until communication was lost in 2007.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: The mission studied the entire Martian surface, atmosphere, and interior, and returned more data about the red planet than all previous Mars missions combined. The data has been archived and remains available publicly.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: Among key scientific findings, "Global Surveyor" took pictures of gullies and debris flow features that suggest there may be current sources of liquid water, similar to an aquifer, at or near the surface of the planet. Similar channels on Earth are formed by flowing water, but on Mars the temperature is normally too cold and the atmosphere too thin to sustain liquid water. Nevertheless, many scientists hypothesize that liquid groundwater can sometimes surface on Mars, erode gullies and channels, and pool at the bottom before freezing and evaporating.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: Magnetometer readings showed that the planet's magnetic field is not globally generated in the planet's core, but is localized in particular areas of the crust. New temperature data and closeup images of the Martian moon Phobos showed that its surface is composed of powdery material at least 1 metre (3 feet) thick, caused by millions of years of meteoroid impacts. Data from the spacecraft's laser altimeter gave scientists their first 3-D views of Mars' north polar ice cap in January 1999.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: Faulty software uploaded to the vehicle in June 2006 caused the spacecraft to orient its solar panels incorrectly several months later, resulting in battery overheating and subsequent failure. On November 5, 2006 MGS lost contact with Earth. NASA ended efforts to restore communication on January 28, 2007.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: In 2001, NASA's "Mars Odyssey" orbiter arrived at Mars. Its mission is to use spectrometers and imagers to hunt for evidence of past or present water and volcanic activity on Mars. In 2002, it was announced that the probe's gamma-ray spectrometer and neutron spectrometer had detected large amounts of hydrogen, indicating that there are vast deposits of water ice in the upper three meters of Mars' soil within 60° latitude of the south pole.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: On June 2, 2003, the European Space Agency's "Mars Express" set off from Baikonur Cosmodrome to Mars. The Mars Express craft consists of the Mars Express Orbiter and the stationary lander Beagle 2. The lander carried a digging device and the smallest mass spectrometer created to date, as well as a range of other devices, on a robotic arm in order to accurately analyze soil beneath the dusty surface to look for biosignatures and biomolecules.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: The orbiter entered Mars orbit on December 25, 2003, and Beagle 2 entered Mars' atmosphere the same day. However, attempts to contact the lander failed. Communications attempts continued throughout January, but Beagle 2 was declared lost in mid-February, and a joint inquiry was launched by the UK and ESA. The Mars Express Orbiter confirmed the presence of water ice and carbon dioxide ice at the planet's south pole, while NASA had previously confirmed their presence at the north pole of Mars.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: The lander's fate remained a mystery until it was located intact on the surface of Mars in a series of images from the "Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter". The images suggest that two of the spacecraft's four solar panels failed to deploy, blocking the spacecraft's communications antenna. "Beagle 2" is the first British and first European probe to achieve a soft landing on Mars.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Mission (MER), started in 2003, was a robotic space mission involving two rovers, "Spirit" (MER-A) and "Opportunity", (MER-B) that explored the Martian surface geology. The mission's scientific objective was to search for and characterize a wide range of rocks and soils that hold clues to past water activity on Mars. The mission was part of NASA's Mars Exploration Program, which includes three previous successful landers: the two Viking program landers in 1976; and Mars Pathfinder probe in 1997.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: The "Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter" (MRO) is a multipurpose spacecraft designed to conduct reconnaissance and exploration of Mars from orbit. The US$720 million spacecraft was built by Lockheed Martin under the supervision of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, launched August 12, 2005, and entered Mars orbit on March 10, 2006.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: The MRO contains a host of scientific instruments such as the HiRISE camera, CTX camera, CRISM, and SHARAD. The HiRISE camera is used to analyze Martian landforms, whereas CRISM and SHARAD can detect water, ice, and minerals on and below the surface. Additionally, MRO is paving the way for upcoming generations of spacecraft through daily monitoring of Martian weather and surface conditions, searching for future landing sites, and testing a new telecommunications system that enable it to send and receive information at an unprecedented bitrate, compared to previous Mars spacecraft. Data transfer to and from the spacecraft occurs faster than all previous interplanetary missions combined and allows it to serve as an important relay satellite for other missions.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: The ESA "Rosetta" space probe mission to the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko flew within 250 km of Mars on February 25, 2007, in a gravitational slingshot designed to slow and redirect the spacecraft.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: The NASA "Dawn" spacecraft used the gravity of Mars in 2009 to change direction and velocity on its way to Vesta, and tested out "Dawn" cameras and other instruments on Mars.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: On November 8, 2011, Russia's Roscosmos launched an ambitious mission called Fobos-Grunt. It consisted of a lander aimed to retrieve a sample back to Earth from Mars' moon Phobos, and place the Chinese Yinghuo-1 probe in Mars' orbit. The Fobos-Grunt mission suffered a complete control and communications failure shortly after launch and was left stranded in low Earth orbit, later falling back to Earth. The Yinghuo-1 satellite and Fobos-Grunt underwent destructive re-entry on January 15, 2012, finally disintegrating over the Pacific Ocean.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: The NASA Mars Science Laboratory mission with its rover named "Curiosity", was launched on November 26, 2011, and landed on Mars on August 6, 2012 on Aeolis Palus in Gale Crater. The rover carries instruments designed to look for past or present conditions relevant to the past or present habitability of Mars.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: NASA's MAVEN is an orbiter mission to study the upper atmosphere of Mars. It will also serve as a communications relay satellite for robotic landers and rovers on the surface of Mars. MAVEN was launched 18 November 2013 and reached Mars on 22 September 2014.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: The Mars Orbiter Mission, also called "Mangalyaan", was launched on 5 November 2013 by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). It was successfully inserted into Martian orbit on 24 September 2014. The mission is a technology demonstrator, and as secondary objective, it will also study the Martian atmosphere. This is India's first mission to Mars, and with it, ISRO became the fourth space agency to successfully reach Mars after the Soviet Union, NASA (USA) and ESA (Europe). It also made ISRO the second space agency to reach Mars orbit on its first attempt (the first national one, after the international ESA), and also the first Asian country to successfully send an orbiter to Mars. It was completed in a record low budget of $71 million, making it the least-expensive Mars mission to date. The mission concluded on September 27, 2022 after contact was lost.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: The ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter is an atmospheric research orbiter built in collaboration between ESA and Roscosmos. It was injected into Mars orbit on 19 October 2016 to gain a better understanding of methane () and other trace gases present in the Martian atmosphere that could be evidence for possible biological or geological activity. The Schiaparelli EDM lander was destroyed when trying to land on the surface of Mars.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: In August 2012, NASA selected "InSight", a $425 million lander mission with a heat flow probe and seismometer, to determine the deep interior structure of Mars. "InSight" landed successfully on Mars on 26 November 2018. Valuable data on the atmosphere, surface and the planet’s interior have been gathered by Insight.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: Two flyby CubeSats called MarCO were launched with "InSight" on 5 May 2018 to provide real-time telemetry during the entry and landing of "InSight". The CubeSats separated from the Atlas V booster 1.5 hours after launch and traveled their own trajectories to Mars.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: The United Arab Emirates launched the Hope Mars Mission, in July 2020 on the Japanese H-IIA booster. It was successfully placed into orbit on 9 February 2021. It is studying the Martian atmosphere and weather.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: Tianwen-1 is a Chinese mission, launched on 23 July 2020. It includes an orbiter, a lander and a rover along with a package of deployable and remote cameras. The orbiter was placed into orbit on 10 February 2021. The "Zhurong" rover successfully soft landed on 14 May 2021 and deployed on 22 May 2021 while dropping a remote selfie camera on 1 June 2021. Till now, two other cameras are deployed one of which made a flyby on 10 February, 2021 and another was released into Mars orbit on 31 December, 2021.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: The Mars 2020 mission by NASA was launched on 30 July 2020 on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral. It is based on the Mars Science Laboratory design. The scientific payload is focused on astrobiology. It includes the "Perseverance" rover and the "Ingenuity" helicopter. Unlike older rovers that relied on solar power, "Perseverance" is nuclear powered, to survive longer than its predecessors in this harsh, dusty environment. The car-size rover weighs about 1 ton, with a robotic arm that reaches about , zoom cameras, a chemical analyzer and a rock drill.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: After traveling 293 million miles (471 million km) to reach Mars over the course of more than six months, "Perseverance" successfully landed on February 18, 2021. Its initial mission is set for at least one Martian year, or 687 Earth days. It will search for signs of ancient life and explore the red planet's surface.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: As of October 19, 2021, "Perseverance" had captured the first sounds from Mars. Recordings consisted of five hours of Martian wind gusts, rover wheels crunching over gravel, and motors whirring as the spacecraft moves its arm. The sounds give researchers clues about the atmosphere, such as how far sound travels on the planet.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: Other future mission concepts include polar probes, Martian aircraft and a network of small meteorological stations. Longterm areas of study may include Martian lava tubes, resource utilization, and electronic charge carriers in rocks. Micromissions are another possibility, such as piggybacking a small spacecraft on an Ariane 5 rocket and using a lunar gravity assist to get to Mars.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: The human exploration of Mars has been an aspiration since the earliest days of modern rocketry; Robert H. Goddard credits the idea of reaching Mars as his own inspiration to study the physics and engineering of space flight. Proposals for human exploration of Mars have been made throughout the history of space exploration; currently there are multiple active plans and programs to put humans on Mars within the next ten to thirty years, both governmental and private, some of which are listed below.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: Human exploration by the United States was identified as a long-term goal in the Vision for Space Exploration announced in 2004 by then US President George W. Bush. The planned "Orion" spacecraft would be used to send a human expedition to Earth's moon by 2020 as a stepping stone to a Mars expedition. On September 28, 2007, NASA administrator Michael D. Griffin stated that NASA aims to put a person on Mars by 2037.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: On December 2, 2014, NASA's Advanced Human Exploration Systems and Operations Mission Director Jason Crusan and Deputy Associate Administrator for Programs James Reuthner announced tentative support for the Boeing "Affordable Mars Mission Design" including radiation shielding, centrifugal artificial gravity, in-transit consumable resupply, and a lander which can return. Reuthner suggested that if adequate funding was forthcoming, the proposed mission would be expected in the early 2030s.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: On October 8, 2015, NASA published its official plan for human exploration and colonization of Mars. They called it "Journey to Mars". The plan operates through three distinct phases leading up to fully sustained colonization.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: On August 28, 2015, NASA funded a year long simulation to study the effects of a year long Mars mission on six scientists. The scientists lived in a bio dome on a Mauna Loa mountain in Hawaii with limited connection to the outside world and were only allowed outside if they were wearing spacesuits.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: NASAs human Mars exploration plans have evolved through the NASA Mars Design Reference Missions, a series of design studies for human exploration of Mars.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: In 2017 the focus of NASA shifted to a return to the Moon by 2024 with the Artemis program, a flight to Mars could follow after this project.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: The long-term goal of the private corporation SpaceX is the establishment of routine flights to Mars to enable colonization. To this end, the company is developing Starship, a spacecraft capable of crew transportation to Mars and other celestial bodies, along with its booster Super Heavy. In 2017 SpaceX announced plans to send two uncrewed Starships to Mars by 2022, followed by two more uncrewed flights and two crewed flights in 2024. Starship is planned to have a payload of at least 100 tonnes. Starship is designed to use a combination of aerobraking and propulsive descent, utilizing fuel produced from a Mars (in situ resource utilization) facility. As of mid 2021, the Starship development program has seen successful testing of several Starship prototypes.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: Mars Direct, a low-cost human mission proposed by Robert Zubrin, founder of the Mars Society, would use heavy-lift Saturn V class rockets, such as the Ares V, to skip orbital construction, LEO rendezvous, and lunar fuel depots. A modified proposal, called "Mars to Stay", involves not returning the first immigrant explorers immediately, if ever (see Colonization of Mars).


title: Exploration of Mars

text: The challenge, complexity and length of Mars missions have led to many mission failures. The high failure rate of missions attempting to explore Mars is informally called the "Mars Curse" or "Martian Curse". The phrase "Galactic Ghoul" or "Great Galactic Ghoul" refers to a fictitious space monster that subsists on a diet of Mars probes, and is sometimes facetiously used to "explain" the recurring difficulties.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: Two Soviet probes were sent to Mars in 1988 as part of the Phobos program. Phobos 1 operated normally until an expected communications session on 2 September 1988 failed to occur. The problem was traced to a software error, which deactivated Phobos 1's attitude thrusters, causing the spacecraft's solar arrays to no longer point at the Sun, depleting Phobos 1's batteries. Phobos 2 operated normally throughout its cruise and Mars orbital insertion phases on January 29, 1989, gathering data on the Sun, interplanetary medium, Mars, and Phobos. Shortly before the final phase of the mission – during which the spacecraft was to approach within 50 m of Phobos' surface and release two landers, one a mobile 'hopper', the other a stationary platform – contact with Phobos 2 was lost. The mission ended when the spacecraft signal failed to be successfully reacquired on March 27, 1989. The cause of the failure was determined to be a malfunction of the on-board computer.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: Just a few years later in 1992 Mars Observer, launched by NASA, failed as it approached Mars. Mars 96, an orbiter launched on November 16, 1996 by Russia failed, when the planned second burn of the Block D-2 fourth stage did not occur.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: Following the success of Global Surveyor and Pathfinder, another spate of failures occurred in 1998 and 1999, with the Japanese Nozomi orbiter and NASA's Mars Climate Orbiter, Mars Polar Lander, and Deep Space 2 penetrators all suffering various fatal errors. The Mars Climate Orbiter was noted for mixing up U.S. customary units with metric units, causing the orbiter to burn up while entering Mars' atmosphere.


title: Exploration of Mars

text: The European Space Agency has also attempted to land two probes on the Martian surface; Beagle 2, a British-built lander that failed to deploy its solar arrays properly after touchdown in December 2003, and "Schiaparelli", which was flown along the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter. Contact with the "Schiaparelli" EDM lander was lost 50 seconds before touchdown. It was later confirmed that the lander struck the surface at a high velocity, possibly exploding.


title: Peter Rabbit

text: Peter Rabbit is a fictional animal character in various children's stories by English author Beatrix Potter. A mischievous, adventurous young rabbit who wears a blue jacket, he first appeared in "The Tale of Peter Rabbit" in 1902, and subsequently in five more books between 1904 and 1912. The six books by Potter featuring Peter Rabbit have sold over 150 million copies. Spin-off merchandise includes dishes, wallpaper, painting books, board games and dolls. In 1903, Peter Rabbit was the first fictional character to be made into a patented stuffed toy, making him the oldest licensed character.


title: Peter Rabbit

text: Peter Rabbit appears as a character in several adaptations, including the television series "The World of Peter Rabbit and Friends" (1992–1998) and "Peter Rabbit" (2012–2016), and the live-action/animated films "Peter Rabbit" (2018) and "" (2021).


title: Peter Rabbit

text: The rabbits in Potter's stories are anthropomorphic and wear human clothes: Peter wears a blue jacket with brass buttons and shoes. Peter, his widowed mother, Mrs. Rabbit, as well as his younger sisters, Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail (with Peter the eldest of the four little rabbits) live in a rabbit hole that has a human kitchen, human furniture, as well as a shop where Mrs. Rabbit sells various items. Peter's relatives are his cousin Benjamin Bunny and Benjamin's father, Mr. Benjamin Bouncer.


title: Peter Rabbit

text: Peter Rabbit was named after a pet rabbit whom Beatrix Potter had as a child, and whom she called Peter Piper. The first Peter Rabbit story, "The Tale of Peter Rabbit", was created in 1893 initially as a letter to Noel Moore, the five-year-old son of Potter's former governess, Annie Moore. The boy was ill, and Potter wrote him a picture and story letter to help him pass the time and to cheer him up. The letter included sketches illustrating the narrative.


title: Peter Rabbit

text: In June 1903, a trade edition of the tale was published by Frederick Warne & Co, and by the end of the year, 28,000 copies were in print. Over the years, "The Tale of Peter Rabbit" has sold more than 40 million copies worldwide, and as of 2008, the Peter Rabbit series of six books has sold more than 150 million copies in 35 languages.


title: Peter Rabbit

text: Peter Rabbit made his first appearance in 1902 in "The Tale of Peter Rabbit". Where Peter disobeys his mother's orders and sneaks into Mr. McGregor's garden, eating as many vegetables as he can before Mr. McGregor spots and chases him. Peter manages to escape, but not before losing his jacket and shoes, which Mr. McGregor uses to dress a scarecrow. Peter returns home weary, ill, and naked and is put to bed with a dose of chamomile tea.


title: Peter Rabbit

text: In "The Tale of Benjamin Bunny", first published in 1904, Peter's cousin Benjamin Bunny brings him back to Mr. McGregor's garden and they retrieve the clothes Peter lost in "The Tale of Peter Rabbit". However, after they gather onions to give to Peter's mother, they are captured by Mr. McGregor's cat. Bouncer arrives and rescues them, but also punishes Peter and Benjamin for going into the garden by whipping them with a switch. In this tale, Peter displays some trepidation about returning to the garden.


title: Peter Rabbit

text: In "The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies", first published in 1909, Peter has a small role and appears only briefly. He is grown up and his sister Flopsy is now married to their cousin Benjamin. The two are the parents of six little Flopsy Bunnies. Peter and his mother keep a nursery garden, and the bunnies come by asking him for spare cabbage.


title: Peter Rabbit

text: In "The Tale of Mr. Tod", first published in 1912, Benjamin and Flopsy's children are kidnapped by notorious badger Tommy Brock. Peter helps Benjamin chase after Brock, who hides out in the house of the fox, Mr. Tod. Mr. Tod finds Brock sleeping in his bed, and as the two get into a scuffle, Peter and Benjamin rescue the children.


title: Peter Rabbit

text: Peter makes cameo appearances in two other tales. In "The Tale of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle", first published in 1905, Peter and Benjamin are customers of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle, a hedgehog washerwoman. The two rabbits are depicted in one illustration peeping from the forest foliage. In "The Tale of Ginger and Pickles", first published in 1909, Peter and other characters from Potter's previous stories make cameo appearances in the artwork, patronising the shop of Ginger and Pickles.


title: Peter Rabbit

text: To mark the 110th anniversary of the publication of "The Tale of Peter Rabbit", Frederick Warne & Co. commissioned British actress Emma Thompson to write "The Further Tale of Peter Rabbit", in which Peter ends up in Scotland after accidentally hitching a ride on Mr. and Mrs. McGregor's wagon. The book was released on September 18, 2012. In autumn 2012, it was reported that Thompson would write more Peter Rabbit books. Her next tale, "The Christmas Tale of Peter Rabbit", was released in 2013, followed by "The Spectacular Tale of Peter Rabbit" in 2014.


title: Peter Rabbit

text: On 27 May 2021, a reboot of Peter Rabbit was released, entitled "Peter Rabbit Head Over Tail", written by Rachel Bright and illustrated by Nicola Kinnear, followed by "Peter Rabbit Hide and Seek" in 2022.


title: Peter Rabbit

text: Potter created a soft doll depicting Peter Rabbit and a Peter Rabbit board game shortly after the tale's first publication. The character has been depicted in a multitude of spinoff merchandise such as porcelain figurines, painting books and dishes. Peter Rabbit had also appeared on the packaging of the infant formula Enfamil.


title: Peter Rabbit

text: Peter Rabbit was the first soft toy to be patented, in 1903, making Peter the oldest licensed character. The toy has been mass produced since 1904. The British publisher Frederick Warne & Co owns the trademark rights of the Beatrix Potter characters. However, most of the stories are in the US public domain, as they were published before 1923.


title: Peter Rabbit

text: The Peter Rabbit (rather than other Beatrix Potter characters) stories and merchandise are very popular in Japan: many Japanese tourists visit the Lake District after becoming familiar with Potter's work at an early age at school. There is an accurate replica of Potter's house and a theme park in Japan, and a series of Mr McGregor's gardens in one of the largest banks. Merchandisers in Japan estimate that 80% of the population have heard of Peter Rabbit.


title: Peter Rabbit

text: In 1936, Walt Disney expressed interest in making a "Peter Rabbit" film. He proposed his idea of a feature-length film to Beatrix Potter, but she refused and did not give him the rights.


title: Peter Rabbit

text: Peter Rabbit appears in the 1971 ballet film, "The Tales of Beatrix Potter". He also was featured in HBO's 1991 "Storybook Musical" adaptation of "The Tale of Peter Rabbit", narrated by Carol Burnett. Several of the stories featuring Peter Rabbit were also animated for the 1992 BBC anthology series, "The World of Peter Rabbit and Friends" and two edutainment titles published by Mindscape "The Adventures of Peter Rabbit & Benjamin Bunny" in 1995 and "Beatrix Potter: Peter Rabbit's Math Garden" in 1996. A CGI-animated children's TV series "Peter Rabbit" premiered on Nickelodeon and CBeebies in December 2012, with Colin DePaula voicing Peter in its first season (American version) and L. Parker Lucas taking over the role for the second season, respectively.


title: Peter Rabbit

text: In 2016, Peter Rabbit and other Potter characters featured on a series of UK postage stamps issued by the Royal Mail to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Beatrix Potter's birth. The same year, Peter Rabbit and other Potter characters appeared on a small number of collectors' 50p British coins.


title: Peter Rabbit

text: An animated/live-action adaptation, "Peter Rabbit" produced by Sony Pictures Animation, was released on 8 February 2018. James Corden voices Peter Rabbit with Domhnall Gleeson and Rose Byrne starring in the live-action role of the lead female named Bea (based on Potter herself). Other cast members include Margot Robbie, Daisy Ridley and Elizabeth Debicki. Will Gluck directed and produced the film, and Zareh Nalbandian also produced, while Lauren Abrahams oversaw the project for Sony Pictures Animation. A sequel "" (2021) reunited most of the cast of the previous film.


title: BBC Online

text: BBC Online, formerly known as BBCi, is the BBC's online service. It is a large network of websites including such high-profile sites as BBC News and Sport, the on-demand video and radio services branded BBC iPlayer and BBC Sounds, the children's sites CBBC and CBeebies, and learning services such as Bitesize and Own It. The BBC has had an online presence supporting its TV and radio programmes and web-only initiatives since April 1994, but did not launch officially until 28 April 1997, following government approval to fund it by TV licence fee revenue as a service in its own right. Throughout its history, the online plans of the BBC have been subject to competition and complaint from its commercial rivals, which has resulted in various public consultations and government reviews to investigate their claims that its large presence and public funding distorts the UK market.


title: BBC Online

text: The website has gone through several branding changes since it was launched. Originally named BBC Online, it was rebranded as BBCi (which itself was the brand name for interactive TV services) before being named bbc.co.uk. It was then renamed BBC Online again in 2008, although the service uses the branding "BBC".


title: BBC Online

text: On 26 February 2010 "The Times" claimed that Mark Thompson, then Director General of the BBC, proposed that the BBC's web output should be cut by 50%, with online staff numbers and budgets reduced by 25% in a bid to scale back BBC operations and allow commercial rivals more room. On 2 March 2010, the BBC reported that it would cut its website spending by 25% and close BBC 6 Music and Asian Network. On 24 January 2011, the confirmed cuts of 25% were announced, leaving a £34 million shortfall. This resulted in the closure of several sites, including BBC Switch, BBC Blast, 6-0-6, and the announcement of plans to sell the Douglas Adams created site h2g2.


title: BBC Online

text: www.bbc.co.uk was introduced in April 1994 with some regional information and Open University Production Centre (OUPC) content. By September, the first commercial service launched, a transcription service via FTP server. At its peak, it had 122 accounts, including FBI bureaus around the world, taking daily updates from 12 feeds.


title: BBC Online

text: Within 12 months, the BBC website offered "Auntie" online discussion groups; web pages for select web-related programs and BBC departments; free web pages for associate members.


title: BBC Online

text: The BBC Multimedia Centre was a team led by Martin Freeth to introduce new media across the corporation.


title: BBC Online

text: BBC Networking Club www.bbcnc.org.uk (the "nc" standing for "networking club") was launched by BBC Education on 11 May 1994 as a non-profit paid subscription service. For a joining fee of £25 and a monthly subscription of £12, members of the club were given access to an early type of social networking site featuring a bulletin board for sharing information and real-time conversation, along with a dialup Internet connection service.


title: BBC Online

text: The BBC Director General John Birt sought government approval to direct licence fee revenue into the service, describing planned BBC Internet services as the "third medium" joining the BBC's existing TV and radio networks, achieving a change in the BBC Charter. This led to the official launch of "BBC Online" at the "www.bbc.co.uk" address in April 1997.


title: BBC Online

text: As well as the licence fee funded www.bbc.co.uk, BBC Worldwide launched the commercially funded beeb.com, featuring mostly entertainment focused content, with sites including "Radio Times", "Top Gear" and "Top of the Pops". Later, BBC Online launched licence-fee funded web sites for "Top of the Pops" and "Top Gear", resulting in some duplication.


title: BBC Online

text: Beeb.com was later refocussed as an online shopping guide, and was closed in 2002. beeb.com later redirected to the BBC Shop website, run by BBC Worldwide.


title: BBC Online

text: In 1999, the BBC bought the bbc.com domain name, previously owned by Boston Business Computing, for $375,000, but the price of this purchase was not revealed until six years later. , "www.bbcnc.org.uk" no longer exists.


title: BBC Online

text: In 2001, BBC Online was rebranded as BBCi; the website launched on 7 November 2001. The BBCi name was conceived as an umbrella brand for all the BBC's digital interactive services across web, digital teletext, interactive TV and on mobile platforms. The use of letter "i" prefixes and suffixes to denote information technology or interactivity was very much in vogue at this time; according to the BBC, the "i" in BBCi stood for "interactivity" as well as "innovation".


title: BBC Online

text: As part of the rebrand, BBC website pages all displayed a standard navigation bar across the top of the screen, offering category-based navigation: Categories, TV, Radio, Communicate, Where I Live, A-Z Index and a search function. The navbar was designed to offer a similar navigation system to the i-bar on BBCi interactive television.


title: BBC Online

text: After three years of consistent use across different platforms, the BBC began to drop the BBCi brand gradually; on 6 May 2004, the BBC website was renamed bbc.co.uk, after the main URL used to access the site. Interactive TV services continued under the BBCi brand until it was dropped completely in 2008. The BBC's online video player, the iPlayer has, however, retained an i-prefix in its branding.


title: BBC Online

text: On 14 December 2007, a beta version of a new bbc.co.uk homepage was launched, with the ability to customise the page by adding, removing and rearranging different categories, such as 'News', 'Weather' and 'Entertainment'. The widget-based design was inspired by sites such as Facebook and iGoogle, and allowed the BBC to add new content to the homepage while still retaining users' customisations. The new homepage also incorporated the clock design used in the 1970s on the BBC's television service into the large header and a box containing featured content of the website. The new BBC homepage left beta on Wednesday, 27 February 2008 to serve as the new BBC Homepage under the same URL as the previous version.


title: BBC Online

text: On 30 January 2010, a new webpage design became available as a beta version, that by May 2010, replaced the old homepage. This homepage expanded on the modules idea and the customisation theme. The website allowed certain themes that interested the viewer to be tracked, via a new module. It also included a new 'Media Zone' where featured content could be displayed, with this new featured box being located across the entire top of the webpage, below the header. The Media Zone was also changed so that the content changed by running the mouse over the tabs. The header was again changed to include the headings of the major sections of the website, these being: Home, News, Sport, Weather, iPlayer, TV, Radio and more, spread out evenly across the header. This new header was included across the entire website. Despite the cosmetic appearance of the relaunch, the new website was actually relaunched using a completely different operating system, allowing the site's four different international versions to be more easily altered. It also brought their website layouts and operations closer to that of the main website.


title: BBC Online

text: Following the launch of the new BBC News website, which altered the header bar on that site, in October 2010, the new style of header was launched across the whole website, starting off with some of the larger, yet not obvious, sites, such as Doctor Who, first before relaunching all of the sites, including the homepage with the new look. This new style of header included the headings as before, but with the search box redesigned and aligned right, as with the links which are significantly smaller. Other links, such as BBC id login and mobile versions of the website also appear on the header, just to the right of the smaller BBC logo.


title: BBC Online

text: On 21 September 2011, a new BBC homepage went into beta testing that was drastically different from those before it. The new homepage was based on feedback that stated that the current page was too narrow in focus and not distinctive enough, with the homepage not displaying the full extend of the BBC Online site and that some didn't realise it was the homepage. As a result, they launched a new version that featured as a centrepiece a revolving carousel of content on the BBC Online website, with filters beneath to restrict it to, and to show more of entertainment, lifestyle, knowledge and news and sports topics. At the top of the page, a new header has been inserted giving the date, the time through the use of the vintage BBC clock, as well as weather prospects for the next three days through the use of the traditional weather symbols. Below the carousel, boxes contain links to the most popular video material, web articles and pages on the site, as well as TV and Radio listings alongside an A-Z list of the BBC's top level domains. This new site replaced the previous one on 30 November 2011. In a blog post from the same day, James Thornett explained the changes – while the post attracted complaints from users disliking the refreshed layout, the new-look site was critically acclaimed and nominated by the Design Museum as one of their Designs of the Year in 2012. It also won a Peabody Award in 2011 because it "continued, expanded and enhanced one of the greatest traditions in electronic media."


title: BBC Online

text: BBC Online contains a variety of content ranging from News, Sport, Music, Science, Technology and Entertainment, amongst other things. The website has a British orientation, although the home page, news section and sports section each provide different content between UK and "International" visitors. There are also separate pages for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland written by the BBC Nations.