What lessons have you taken from Nobel prize winning, Mohammad Yunus’ Grameen Bank?
We’ve replicated the Grameen model. We’ve taken it and in terms of scaling, pushed it to a higher level by taking these three constraints and overcoming those. We didn’t have to invent the model of peer lending — that was pioneered by Grameen, and that was a critical innovation — because the first problem in lending to the poor is how do you give a collateral-free loan to a poor woman you don’t know, who has no credit history? To overcome that risk question, peer lending is a brilliant innovation. So we said, OK so the fundamental field level aspects of Grameen we don’t need to change. But the institutional, the system — capital, capacity, costs — that’s where I thought we could do something. So I replicated the field level aspects, but really departed when it came to some of the institutional views. For example, let’s take the capital approach. Yunus believes that microfinance should be a social business, no profit no loss. So we’ve got a very different view at SKS — our view is that
