Microfinance, as every activity implemented by ACTED, was set up following the request of some beneficiaries, most of them being at that time, beneficiaries of food aid activities, i.e. the most vulnerable populations far below the poverty line, requesting access to financial services. These beneficiaries basically designed our first Microfinance products and ACTED worked on their systematisation, replication and larger scale implementation following an ever growing demand.

Initiated in 2000 in Central Asia, Microfinance became one of ACTED's key sectors of intervention through the years and developed rapidly.

OXUS is the result of the transfer of ACTED Microfinance activities in a dedicated organisation. While Microfinance activities remained integrated into ACTED up to 2004, the emergence of specific regulations in the Microfinance sector in 2005 urged us to create specific tools to take over ACTED Microfinance Programme (MFP) and separate them from ACTED. From a legal point of view, this dedicated structure thus complied with emerging laws and regulations in the countries of operation. The transition phase for the effective transfer is planned to be completed in 2006.

In order to maintain the "local but global" approach, ACTED decided to create OXUS Group, based in Europe with specific branches in each country of operation

Thus, in 2009 OXUS Group is made of the following entities:

• OXUS Holding, the investiment instrument of the Group, based in Luxembourg
• OXUS Develepment Network, a consulting company specialised in microfinance, based in Paris
• 3 Micro Finance Institutions (MFIs) based in the fields :
• OXUS Tajikistan
• OXUS Kyrghyzstan
• OXUS Afhanistan