A few weeks ago, the front page of Financial Times carried an article announcing that the Grameen Bank from Bangladesh has entered the US Markets, setting shop in Queens, NYC.
Its main clientele would currently include lending to the disadvantaged women population and then expanding into other areas. A third-world bank lending money to the world’s richest country! Ironical yet so true!
The bank was created with the principle of lending those stuck in the BPL Trap –the ‘below poverty line’ – those not even considered within the closest circumference of the normal bankers. It is to nudge those who have no security, beggars on the roads so to say, those who have never managed $100 finance. It is to lift lives of these kinds of people that the idea of micro-finance was born. Named as one of the greatest entrepreneurs of the current age and time, Professor Mohammed Yunus pioneered micro-credit. There are loads of websites and innumerable resources behind the Man, his vision and his commitment.
Not going into those details, I too wonder (with my miniscule knowledge of the global markets) whether Grameen Bank could, as stated in the article, ‘make an impact in the US where the credit is widely available and businesses and tax systems were much trickier to navigate than in developing countries’? Will the strategies of Micro-Credit work in the country that fell into the hands of the mortgage meltdown? Is such a lending possibility about to pave way for a revolution in a country that has been knocked down due to the (ahem) subprime options?
Having read up a bit on the subprime credit, it appears that both, microfinance and subprime function on similar objectives i.e. lending those with no access and both have lower rates of interest. The fascinating aspect would be to really see how, despite these factors that failed the subprime, the micro-credit principles, that flamed to success across South Asia and Africa (among others too), build its model in the developed world. There is no doubt that Professor Yunus has moved this world ahead and a classic example of ‘One Individual Making a Difference at the Macro Level’ – in this case, tackling global poverty!
He has indeed, consolidated and about to conquer! So really, Kudos to him for his motives, his compassion and conviction in engaging people to take action and also, in entering the West, at the precision of time and age!
