Download or read book Banker To The Poor written by Muhammad Yunus and published by Public Affairs. This book was released on 2003-10-16 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The inspirational story of how Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunus invented microcredit, founded the Grameen Bank, and transformed the fortunes of millions of poor people around the world. Muhammad Yunus was a professor of economics in Bangladesh, who realized that the most impoverished members of his community were systematically neglected by the banking system -- no one would loan them any money. Yunus conceived of a new form of banking -- microcredit -- that would offer very small loans to the poorest people without collateral, and teach them how to manage and use their loans to create successful small businesses. He founded Grameen Bank based on the belief that credit is a basic human right, not the privilege of a fortunate few, and it now provides $24 billion of micro-loans to more than nine million families. Ninety-seven percent of its clients are women, and repayment rates are over 90 percent. Outside of Bangladesh, micro-lending programs inspired by Grameen have blossomed, and serve hundreds of millions of people around the world. The definitive history of micro-credit direct from the man that conceived of it, Banker to the Poor is the moving story of someone who dreamed of changing the world -- and did.

Download or read book Banking the Poor written by and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2009-01-01 with total page 108 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Banking the Poor explores level and determinants of financial access in 54 countries, mostly in Africa. It collects information from two sources: central banks and leading commercial banks in each surveyed country. It explores associations between countries' banking policies and practices and their levels of financial access, measured in terms of the numbers of bank account per thousand adults. It builds on the previous work measuring financial access through information from regulators, from banks, and also from users' perspectives in household surveys.

Download or read book Fringe Banking written by John P. Caskey and published by Russell Sage Foundation. This book was released on 1994-08-24 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Cogently argued, fills an important gap in the literature, and is accessible to undergraduates." —Choice "Dismantles the mythology surrounding pawnshops and check-cashing outlets, and demonstrates that they are no longer on the fringe of our financial system but integral to it."—San Francisco Bay Guardian In today's world of electronic cash transfers, automated teller machines, and credit cards, the image of the musty, junk-laden pawnshop seems a relic of the past. But it is not. The 1980s witnessed a tremendous boom in pawnbroking. There are now more pawnshops thanever before in U.S. history, and they are found not only in large cities but in towns and suburbs throughout the nation. As John Caskey demonstrates in Fringe Banking, the increased public patronage of both pawnshops and commercial check-cashing outlets signals the growing number of American households now living on a cash-only basis, with no connection to any mainstream credit facilities or banking services. Fringe Banking is the first comprehensive study of pawnshops and check-cashing outlets, profiling their operations, customers, and recent growth from family-owned shops to such successful outlet chains as Cash American and ACE America's Cash Express. It explains why, despite interest rates and fees substantially higher than those of banks, their use has so dramatically increased. According to Caskey, declining family earnings, changing family structures, a growing immigrant population, and lack of household budgeting skills has greatly reduced the demand for bank deposit services among millions of Americans. In addition, banks responded to 1980s regulatory changes by increasing fees on deposit accounts with small balances and closing branches in many poor urban areas. These factors combined to leave many low- and moderate-income families without access to checking privileges, credit services, and bank loans. Pawnshops and check-cashing outlets provide such families with essential financial services thay cannot obtain elsewhere. Caskey notes that fringe banks, particularly check-cashing outlets, are also utilized by families who could participate in the formal banking system, but are willing to pay more for convenience and quick access to cash. Caskey argues that, contrary to their historical reputation as predators milking the poor and desperate, pawnshops and check-cashing outlets play a key financial role for disadvantaged groups. Citing the inconsistent and often unenforced state laws currently governing the industry, Fringe Banking challenges policy makers to design regulations that will allow fringe banks to remain profitable without exploiting the customers who depend on them.

Download or read book Financial Promise for the Poor written by Kim Wilson and published by Kumarian Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: * Balanced assessment of recent savings-led programs in microfinance * Contributors include wide range of scholars and practitioners The entry of the private sector into financial services for the poor is a relatively new development, but already the glossy promises of credit-led microfinance are facing scrutiny from the development community. Policymakers and economists have begun picking through the hype of microfinance to identify where and how top-down loans might fit into broader human development efforts. To many, the answer involves shifting focus to another financial service: savings. Serving as a strong and perhaps more effective tool than microcredit, microsavings is quickly becoming a lauded poverty-alleviation tool. Contributors to Financial Promise for the Poor cover current innovations in microsavings happening around the world. They describe how savings group members in the developing world are avoiding many of the financial liabilities and debt of other microfinance programs while gaining skills and finding opportunities in collective enterprise. The turn from credit to savings speaks to the growing empowerment of individuals and communities as they break the bonds of indebtedness and find their own paths to financial security.

Download or read book Banking on the Poor written by Robert L. Ayres and published by . This book was released on 1983 with total page 8 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Global Findex Database 2017 written by Asli Demirguc-Kunt and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2018-04-19 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 2011 the World Bank—with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation—launched the Global Findex database, the world's most comprehensive data set on how adults save, borrow, make payments, and manage risk. Drawing on survey data collected in collaboration with Gallup, Inc., the Global Findex database covers more than 140 economies around the world. The initial survey round was followed by a second one in 2014 and by a third in 2017. Compiled using nationally representative surveys of more than 150,000 adults age 15 and above in over 140 economies, The Global Findex Database 2017: Measuring Financial Inclusion and the Fintech Revolution includes updated indicators on access to and use of formal and informal financial services. It has additional data on the use of financial technology (or fintech), including the use of mobile phones and the Internet to conduct financial transactions. The data reveal opportunities to expand access to financial services among people who do not have an account—the unbanked—as well as to promote greater use of digital financial services among those who do have an account. The Global Findex database has become a mainstay of global efforts to promote financial inclusion. In addition to being widely cited by scholars and development practitioners, Global Findex data are used to track progress toward the World Bank goal of Universal Financial Access by 2020 and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The database, the full text of the report, and the underlying country-level data for all figures—along with the questionnaire, the survey methodology, and other relevant materials—are available at www.worldbank.org/globalfindex.

Download or read book African Successes Volume III written by Sebastian Edwards and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2016-09-23 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Studies of African economic development frequently focus on the daunting challenges the continent faces. From recurrent crises to ethnic conflicts and long-standing corruption, a raft of deep-rooted problems has led many to regard the continent as facing many hurdles to raise living standards. Yet Africa has made considerable progress in the past decade, with a GDP growth rate exceeding five percent in some regions. The African Successes series looks at recent improvements in living standards and other measures of development in many African countries with an eye toward identifying what shaped them and the extent to which lessons learned are transferable and can guide policy in other nations and at the international level. The third volume in the series, African Successes: Modernization and Development looks at the rise in private production in spite of difficult institutional and physical environments. The volume emphasizes the ways that technologies, including mobile phones, have made growth in some areas especially dynamic.

Download or read book Business Solutions for the Global Poor written by V. Kashturi Rangan and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2007-02-03 with total page 455 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on research presented at The Harvard Business School’s first-ever conference on business approaches to poverty alleviation, Business Solutions for the Global Poor brings together perspectives from leading academics and corporate, non-profit and public sector managers. The contributors draw on practical and dynamic how-to insights from leading BOP ventures from more than twenty countries world-wide. This important volume reflects poverty’s multi-faceted nature and a broad range of actors—multinational and local businesses, entrepreneurs, civil society organizations and governments—that play a role in its alleviation.

Download or read book Banker To The Poor written by Muhammd Yunus And Alan Jolisby Muhammad Yusus and published by Penguin Books India. This book was released on 2007-06-15 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: &Lsquo;It&Rsquo;S Not People Who Aren&Rsquo;T Credit-Worthy. It&Rsquo;S Banks That Aren&Rsquo;T People-Worthy&Rsquo; &Mdash;Muhammad Yunus Muhammad Yunus, Winner Of The Nobel Peace Prize In 2006, Set Up The Grameen Bank In Bangladesh To Lend Tiny Sums To The Poorest Of The Poor, Who Were Shunned By Ordinary Banks. The Money Would Enable Them To Set Up The Smallest Village Enterprise And Pull Themselves Out Of Poverty. Today, Yunus&Rsquo;S System Of &Lsquo;Micro-Credit&Rsquo; Is Practised In Some Sixty Countries, And His Grameen Bank Is A Billion-Pound Business Acknowledged By World Leaders And The World Bank As A Fundamental Weapon In The Fight Against Poverty. Banker To The Poor Is Yunus&Rsquo;S Own Enthralling Story: Of How Bangladesh&Rsquo;S Terrible 1974 Famine Underlined The Need To Enable Its Victims To Grow More Food; Of Overcoming Scepticism In Many Governments And In Traditional Economic Thinking; And Of How Micro-Credit Was Extended Into Credit Unions In The West.

Download or read book Can the Poor Save written by Michael Sherraden and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-09-08 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many policymakers argue that the best poverty policy not only provides cash to the poor for subsistence but also incentives and structures that encourage long-term social and economic improvement. As part of this, they make the case for Individual Development Accounts (IDAs), a new policy proposal designed to help the poor save and to build assets. This book explores IDAs to determine their effectiveness. IDAs are matched savings accounts targeted on low-income, low-wealth individuals. Savings in IDAs are used for home ownership, post-secondary education, small business development, and other purposes. Do IDAs work? If they do, for whom? And does how an IDA is designed determine savings outcomes? This volume is the first analysis of matched savings by the poor to use data from monthly bank statements. It comes at a critical time, as debate rages over the merits of individual social security accounts. IDAs also respond to policy that is becoming more asset based and less inclusive of the poor. The authors argue for the efficacy of IDAs to counter this tendency. They find that while savings outcomes vary among participants, no characteristics (such as low income or public assistance) preclude saving. They examine effects of IDA design (the match rate, savings targets, and the use of automatic transfer) on savings results and analyze factors that influence varying rates of saving and spending over time. They conclude that financial education and other support services, though costly, improve savings performance. To address the issue of cost they suggest a two-tier system of IDA design, one with broad access and simple services and the other with targeted access and intensive services. Can the Poor Save? offers a wealth of lessons to those interested in saving and asset accumulation among the poor. It not only breaks new ground in the scientific study of savings behavior, but also offers concrete, evidence-based recommendations to improve policies designed to encourage the poor to save and how to make such policies more inclusive.

Download or read book Insufficient Funds written by Rebecca M. Blank and published by Russell Sage Foundation. This book was released on 2009-03-26 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One in four American adults doesn’t have a bank account. Low-income families lack access to many of the basic financial services middle-class families take for granted and are particularly susceptible to financial emergencies, unemployment, loss of a home, and uninsured medical problems. Insufficient Funds explores how institutional constraints and individual decisions combine to produce this striking disparity and recommends policies to help alleviate the problem. Mainstream financial services are both less available and more expensive for low-income households. High fees, minimum-balance policies, and the relative scarcity of banks in poor neighborhoods are key factors. Michael Barr reports the results of an in-depth study of financial behavior in 1,000 low- and moderate-income families in metropolitan Detroit. He finds that most poor households have bank accounts, but combine use of mainstream services with alternative options such as money orders, pawnshops, and payday lenders. Barr suggests that a tax credit for banks serving primarily disadvantaged customers could facilitate greater equality in the private financial sector. Drawing on evidence from behavioral economics, Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir show that low-income individuals exhibit many of the same patterns and weaknesses in financial decision making as middle-class individuals and could benefit from many of the same financial aids. They argue that savings programs that automatically enroll participants and require them to actively opt out in order to leave the program could drastically increase savings ability. Ronald Mann demonstrates that significant changes in the credit market over the past fifteen years have allowed companies to expand credit to a larger share of low-income families. Mann calls for regulations on credit card companies that would require greater disclosure of actual interest rates and fees. Raphael Bostic and Kwan Lee find that while home ownership has risen dramatically over the past twenty years, elevated risks for low-income families—such as foreclosure—may well outweigh the benefits of owning a home. The authors ultimately argue that if we want to demand financial responsibility from low-income households, we have an obligation to assure that these families have access to the banking, credit, and savings institutions that are readily available to higher-income families. Insufficient Funds highlights where and how access is blocked and shows how government policy and individual decisions could combine to eliminate many of these barriers in the future.

Download or read book Microfinance Handbook written by Joanna Ledgerwood and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 1998-12-01 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The purpose of the 'Microfinance Handbook' is to bring together in a single source guiding principles and tools that will promote sustainable microfinance and create viable institutions.

Download or read book Microfinance an Economic Analysis of Banking to the Poor written by Samuel Wahlen and published by Archway Publishing. This book was released on 2017-07-05 with total page 142 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Great strides are being made in technology, medicine, and other fields, but with these advances, many people are still being left behind in poverty. The poor struggle to feed their families, work long hours for little pay, and face obstacles in educating themselves and their children. They see no end to the nightmareand they feel trapped. World leaders have responded by offering a handout rather than a hand up, which does nothing to fix the problem. In this book, youll learn why: Foreign aid to developing countries weakens democratic institutions and empowers leaders to make bad policy decisions. Small businesses serve an important role in strengthening economies in developing countries. Small business owners opt out of legal environments and choose to operate in informal sectors. Microfinance institutions offer the poor greater flexibility and opportunity than larger financial institutions. When helping the poor, the goal does not need to be unanimous economic equality, but we must provide opportunities to escape the clutches of poverty. Find out how it can be done, step by step, with Microfinance.

Download or read book Banker to the Poor written by Muhammad Yunus and published by ReadHowYouWant.com. This book was released on 2010-07 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Muhammad Yunus is that rare thing; a bona fide visionary. His dream is the total eradication of poverty from the world. In 1983, against the advice of banking and government officials, Yunus established Grameen, a bank devoted to providing the poorest of Bangladesh with minuscule loans. Grameen Bank, based on the belief that credit is a basic human right, not the privilege of a fortunate few, now provides over 2.5 billion dollars of micro-loans to more than two million families in rural Bangladesh. Ninety-four percent of Yunus's clients are women, and repayment rates are near 100 percent. Around the world, micro-lending programs inspired by Grameen are blossoming, with more than three hundred programs established in the United States alone. Banker to the Poor is Muhammad Yunus's memoir of how he decided to change his life in order to help the world's poor. In it he traces the intellectual and spiritual journey that led him to fundamentally rethink the economic relationship between rich and poor, and the challenges he and his colleagues faced in founding Grameen. He also provides wise, hopeful guidance for anyone who would like to join him in ''putting homelessness and destitution in a museum so that one day our children will visit it and ask how we could have allowed such a terrible thing to go on for so long.'' The definitive history of micro-credit direct from the man that conceived of it, Banker to the Poor is necessary and inspirational reading for anyone interested in economics, public policy, philanthropy, social history, and business. Muhammad Yunus was born in Bangladesh and earned his Ph.D. in economics in the United States at Vanderbilt University, where he was deeply influenced by the civil rights movement. He still lives in Bangladesh, and travels widely around the world on behalf of Grameen Bank and the concept of micro-credit.

Download or read book Bootstrap Capital written by Lisa J. Servon and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2011-07-01 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The microenterprise strategy—helping people start small businesses—has generated attention among policymakers and the media as a way to create jobs and help lift people out of poverty. Through extensive interviews and case studies of five diverse microenterprise programs in different U.S. regions, Lisa J. Servon examines the potential and limits of these programs. In the late 1980s, the microenterprise strategy came to the United States from less-developed countries such as Bangladesh, where the Grameen Bank flourishes. Since then over 200 programs have opened their doors in nearly every state. This book identifies the current discourse on microenterprises, discusses how this approach represents a departure from traditional economic development and social welfare strategies, and examines the wide range of results. Boot strap Capital tells the story of both the programs and the people who use them. One program, Women's Initiative, targets very low income women in the San Francisco Bay Area and requires all clients to undergo three months of training before they can apply for a loan. Some of the participants are true entrepreneurs; others pursue self-employment because the mainstream economy has failed them. Servon finds that microenterprise programs combat the problem of persistent poverty by serving a broad socioeconomic group and by focusing on the goals of empowerment, economic literacy, and community organization. She shows that microenterprise programs do more to help those who exist at the margins of the mainstream economy than those who are completely cut off from it. She calls for a rethinking of expectations for this strategy, based on the experience of programs and entrepreneurs in this country. This book provides the basis for reframing policy support for these programs.

Download or read book Banker to the Poor written by Muhammad Yunus and published by Aurum. This book was released on 2003-07-11 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Muhammad Yunus set up the Grameen Bank in his home country of Bangladesh with a loan of just £17, to lend tiny amounts of money to the poorest of the poor - those to whom no ordinary bank would lend. Most of his customers - as they still are - were illiterate women, wanting to set up the smallest imaginable village enterprises. It was his conviction that this new system of 'micro-credit', lending even such small sums, would give such people the spark of initiative needed to pull themselves out of poverty. Today, Yunus's system of micro-credit is practised around the world in some 60 countries, including the US, Canada and France. His Grameen Bank is now a billion-pound business. It is acknowledged by world leaders and by the World Bank to be a fundamental weapon in the fight against poverty. Banker to the Poor is Yunus's enthralling story of how he did it: how the terrible famine in Bangladesh in 1974 focused his ideas on the need to enable its victims to grow more food; how he overcame the sceptics in many governments and among traditional economic thinking; and how he saw his micro-credit extended even outside the Third World into credit unions in the West. Such is the importance of his book that HRH the Prince of Wales has contributed a Foreword in which he hails 'a remarkable man [who] spoke the greatest good sense'.

Download or read book Just Give Money to the Poor written by Joseph Hanlon and published by Kumarian Press. This book was released on 2012-03 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: * Argues strongly for overlooked approach to development by showing how the poor use money in ways that confound stereotypical notions of aid and handouts * Team authored by foremost scholars in the development field Amid all the complicated economic theories about the causes and solutions to poverty, one idea is so basic it seems radical: just give money to the poor. Despite its skeptics, researchers have found again and again that cash transfers given to significant portions of the population transform the lives of recipients. Countries from Mexico to South Africa to Indonesia are giving money directly to the poor and discovering that they use it wisely “ to send their children to school, to start a business and to feed their families. Directly challenging an aid industry that thrives on complexity and mystification, with highly paid consultants designing ever more complicated projects, Just Give Money to the Pooroffers the elegant southern alternative “ bypass governments and NGOs and let the poor decide how to use their money. Stressing that cash transfers are not charity or a safety net, the authors draw an outline of effective practices that work precisely because they are regular, guaranteed and fair. This book, the first to report on this quiet revolution in an accessible way, is essential reading for policymakers, students of international development and anyone yearning for an alternative to traditional poverty-alleviation methods.