Microcredit Is Expanding to New Products for the Poor

26 March 2012

Muhammad Yunus has his picture taken with students at a technical school in Port-au-Prince, Haiti last year. The school received a loan from a group headed by Mr. Yunus to help build social businesses.

This is the VOA Special English Economics Report.

Modern microfinance started with economist Muhammad Yunus. In the nineteen seventies, he started what became the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh. He and the bank jointly won the Nobel Peace Prize in two thousand six for the idea of offering small loans to the poor to fight poverty.

Last month, Mr. Yunus spoke to the New York Times newspaper about lending problems in India. In twenty ten, reports of harmful microlending methods and corruption shook the state of Andhra Pradesh. Mr. Yunus noted Andhra Pradesh had intensive microlending activity at the time. He said things got out of control.

We spoke to Ghiyath Nakshbendi about changes in the world of microfinance. He is an expert in international business and teaches microfinance as a business model at the Kogod School of Business at American University.

GHIYATH NAKSHBENDI: “After what we witnessed in Andhra Pradesh, then, for example, the government of India in certain states started taking steps in order to implement, in order to introduce, regulations that will guarantee that these institutions are operating under a strict system.”