Gender discrimination is a persistent problem faced by women all over the world, which has ledto the need to empower women for uplifting their status as recognized by Millennium Development Goals (2010). The present study focuses on the role of microfinance in empowering women and also acknowledges its’ significance in alleviating poverty. The researcher used qualitative approach and case study...

Action Research Programme (RADAR), School of Public Health, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. L.A. Morison is with the Infectious Disease Epidemiology Unit, Department of Infectious and Tropical Diseases, LSHTM (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine), C. Watts is with the Health Policy Unit, Department of Public Health and Policy, LSHTM, and J.D.H. Porter is with the Clini...

The Grameen Bank has attracted worldwide attention by providing small loans to poor people across rural villages in Bangladesh. In 2006 the Nobel Committee awarded the Grameen Bank and its founder Professor Mohammad Yunus the Nobel Peace Prize for their, “efforts to create economic and social development from below.”[1] The Nobel committee asserted that microfinance is “an important liberating ...

Microfinance is not a new development. Its origin can be traced back to 1976, when Muhammad Yunus set up the Grameen Bank, as experiment, on the outskirts of Chittagong University campus in the village of Jobra, Bangladesh. Since then several microfinance institutions came up and have succeeded in reaching the poorest of the poor, and have devised new ground-breaking strategies with time for th...

a r t i c l e i n f o JEL classification: O16 C93 D03 Keywords: Field experiment Microfinance Investment game Trust Trustworthiness Creditworthiness and trustworthiness are almost synonyms because, under asymmetric information, the act of conferring a loan has the indirect effect of signaling the trustworthiness of the borrower. We test the creditworthiness/trustworthiness nexus in an investmen...

Finding ways to downscale microfinance is one of the current challenges facing commercial banks, especially in developing countries. As banks have a poor knowledge of microfinance, operating in this market will require capacity-building, innovative business models and new technological architectures. This paper discusses how one particular architecture – the Brazilian model of correspondent ban...

The article examines the models of microfinance institutions (MFIs) and some alterations in this field. The regional distribution of MFIs has been shown, as well as their main ties with the real economy against a background of commercial banks. The study also provide some findings on the influence of the financial crisis, which erupted in the late 2007, on the microfinance sector. Therefore, th...

Muslim-majority countries do not use formal financial services (Honohon 2007).1 Even when financial services are available, some people view conventional products as incompatible with the financial principles set forth in Islamic law. In recent years, some microfinance institutions (MFIs) have stepped in to service low-income Muslim clients who demand products consistent with Islamic financial ...

specialist microfinance institutions (MFIs). The Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) has traditionally pursued an active "developmental" role in the microfinance sector, although this has been changing. It should further reduce its developmental activities by diluting its ownership of regional development banks and taking a less hands-on role in project implementation. Conversely, it would be appr...