PONE-D-22-35508Transformation of financial institutions grants from the government to inclusive financial institutionsPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. mufidah,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

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ACADEMIC EDITOR:

I have now received the complete reports from the referees about your submitted manuscript. The referees are a seasoned, well-published scholar whose work and opinion I greatly value. You will see from their remarks that they paid very close attention to your paper. Following the report, I re-read and re-assess it with a fair view.  

I appreciate your efforts in writing the manuscript and find the topic exciting and worth pursuing. As you can see from the detailed reports, the reviewers have good evaluations of the quality of your paper. They suggest a revision due to some remaining concerns that need to be addressed. My assessment is similar so I decided to give you an opportunity to revise your manuscript because I trust that you can address all comments adequately. Please take this chance to improve the quality of the paper to satisfy the referee. Please carefully follow the comments to revise your manuscript and resubmit it for re-consideration for publication. Proofreading is strongly advised to ensure that the manuscript is free of errors and well-written.

I will not repeat the reviewers' comments to avoid confusions, hence, would suggest you reading detailed comments in referees' reports. 

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We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Vu Quang Trinh, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Additional Editor Comments:

Please pay more attentions to analyses and method comments, but should not ignore others. 

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Partly

Reviewer #2: Partly

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: The topic is very interesting. The authors have done a good job for determining the transformation of MFI from government grants to inclusive financial institutions in Indonesia that can help the funding needs of people’s economic businesses in rural areas. This paper provides some important insights for practitioners not only in Indonesia but also in countries which aim to reduce poverty and creating job opportunities in villages. I appreciate the re opportunity to review the proposed article and hope that my considerations will help to improve the work.

1. The abstract section has clearly mentioned the research objectives. However, it is recommended to add the innovation and contributions, such as the differences between other literatures.

2. Please add line number and page number so that pinpointed changes can be recommend.

3. There are some words for introducing MFI in section of results and discussions, I think it may be easier to read if make these sentences as another section after the introduction part.

4. This paper wrote in the methodology section “The study used the cluster proportional sampling technique. We employ the technique because this is follow-up research carried out in 2018, 2019 and 2022”. It is recommended add the relevance and importance of this method to justify the application in this study or explain clearly why the reason for using this technique is the follow-up research carried out in 2018, 2019 and 2022.

5. This paper used the cluster proportional sampling technique and did a good analysis for the data. However, the study aims to determine the transformation of MFI from government grants to inclusive financial institutions in Indonesia that can help the funding needs of people’s economic businesses in rural areas. I think this method can show the transformation but cannot show the relevance with PUAP activities. And this method cannot show the impact on funding needs of people’s economic business in rural areas either. Thus, some other methods, such as OLS method and event study, should also be used in this research.

6. It is recommended to add limitations and future research ideas in the conclusion section. And the implications for Indonesia from the results should also be added.

Reviewer #2: This manuscript investigates what has been made in the context of the transformation of financial institutions grants from the government to the inclusive financial institution and whether the microfinance institution is sustainable. The complete data, the comprehensive presentation, and the systematic storytelling are my first impressions of this manuscript. Using Indonesia as the object of study and the full elaboration of its figurative meanings are also strengths of the manuscript. Together with the findings, the manuscript’s discussion forms a clear marginal contribution to the existing literature. However, I think the research design may be inaccurate. Specifically, the manuscript has the following issues:

First, the manuscript is too close to the form of a research report. I recommended that the study’s intent be supplemented with a complete description of the manuscript’s structure. A more detailed description of the remainder of the manuscript can be added at the end of the Introduction. Section/Subsection that is not directly related to the central strand of research can be placed in the appendices if necessary.

Second, the manuscript takes Indonesia as the default context but does not sufficiently argue in the background statements in the Introduction section whether Indonesia-specific issues are enough general or representative, despite their undoubted importance. In particular, the manuscript’s assessment of findings and policy implications needs to be more widespread; that is to say, although we use Indonesia as a sample, we would like to obtain a more general summarization, both from the perspectives of results and policy. Solving the first issue helps to improve the present issue.

Third, when presenting the research’s background and arguing its importance, it is recommended to add a general picture of such a subject. For example, plot a general state of the country or the world in Figure 1 as a comparison. As far as I can see, after these elements with a broader perspective are added to the research background statement, the importance and significance of the consequential research contents may become more apparent.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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Transformation of financial institutions grants from the government to inclusive financial institutions in Indonesia

PONE-D-22-35508R1

Dear Dr. mufidah,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org.

If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org.

Kind regards,

Vu Quang Trinh, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: Yes

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3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: Yes

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6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes: Fu-Wei Huang

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