How can Grameen manage such expansive lending operations without any collateral?
Y: Everyone is interested in how much money we lend, how we get paid, how the money is returned, how accounts are kept – everything about money. But Grameen Bank is not about money. Ninety percent of Grameen Bank is about people. The bank’s only collateral is trust. RA: You often say “the poor always pay back their loans”. Why? Y: If any one can trust her [a rural poor borrower] with what is for her so much money, she will work hard. RA: So Grameen creates mechanisms of self-employment rather than aid? Y: The most important step to end poverty is to create employment and income opportunity for the poor. But orthodox economics recognized only wage-employment. It has no room for self-employment. But self-employment is the quickest and easiest way to create employment for the poor. RA: The success of your micro-credit model is often held up as an antithesis of Washington-consensus globalization. Is it? Y: The issue of globalization comes to me everyday. Those who take an anti-globalizatio
