How has microfinance changed since Yunus started Grameen Bank 30 years ago?
“The original Grameen business model — group lending, and mostly to women — has been adapted and developed by thousands of microfinance institutions from Latin America to Africa to East Asia and beyond. But microfinance today is also about much more than small loans. It’s about providing a full range of financial services, like safe places to save and transfer money, to ever-larger numbers of poor people. And it’s being done by much more than donor-funded NGOs. Microfinance has actually matured into one of the most successful and fastest-growing industries in the world. In Africa alone, its growth is probably second only to that of cell phone use. According to a recent analysis conducted by CGAP, the compound annual growth rate of the world’s leading microfinance providers over the last five years has been an incredible 15 percent. Worldwide, these leading microfinance institutions are nearly twice as profitable as the world’s leading commercial banks.” What about its impact in Bangl
