In Trust We Trust
Grameen Bank, the brainchild of microfinance guru Mohammed Yunus,
lends money to the poorest people in the world. Its 7.5 million clients
are people who not only have no assets and no jobs, but in many cases
they have never even handled money before. Yunus himself describes
these borrowers as "sub sub sub subprime." The loans are based on
nothing more than trust, yet they are paid back an astonishing 98% of
the time, at rates of interest as high as 20%. This is not a charity.
Grameen is a business with a social goal–to eliminate poverty–and it