Empowerment as an Intervening Variable of the Influence of Microfinance on the Economic Growth of Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises

This study aims to determine the effect of microfinance on the economic growth of MSMEs with empowerment as an intervening variable. This research uses a quantitative approach. The population in this study were BSI KC Purwokerto Karangkobar customers, sampling technique with probability sampling type simple random sampling, so that the sample used was 100 respondents. Data collection was obtained from the results of distributing questionnaires to BSI KC Purwokerto Karangkobar customers. The analysis technique uses Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) with the Partial Least Square (PLS) approach through SmartPLS 4.0 software. The results of this study indicate that microfinance has an effect on MSMEs economic growth, empowerment has no effect on MSMEs economic growth, and empowerment cannot strengthen the influence of microfinance variables on MSMEs economic growth. The implication in this study is that microfinance is able to increase the economic growth of MSMEs customers of BSI KC Purwokerto Karangkobar, so that indirectly BSI KC Purwokerto Karangkobar helps the economic growth of the MSMEs sector in Purwokerto Regency.