The Poor Always Pay Back: The Grameen II Story

by Asif Dowla, Dipal Barua

Nobel Prize-winning microcredit institution Grameen Bank has financially empowered the poorest families in more than a hundred countries across the globe for over three decades through savings and loans. Recently, Grameen has undergone a complete overhaul of its system, creating "Grameen II" and seeking to make its loan programs more effective.

The Poor Always Pay Back not only uncovers how a major financial institution is able to change its system in response to the needs of its borrowers, but also how Grameen redefined and continues to redefine the basic assumptions of credit worthiness. The immense success of Grameen Bank shows a hopeful trend in the alleviation of poverty.

Grameen Bank II is addressing the frontier issues in open access savings, flexible loan products, self reliance and absence of donor dependency for funds, and product development to cater to the needs of the retirees (Grameen Pension Scheme) and their adult children (Higher Education Loans). The story behind these and other innovations show why Grameen has become such an inspiration to those working for social justice everywhere.

Genres: Economics, Nonfiction

320 pages, Paperback

First published November 14, 2006

Reviews

[Shawnee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Describes the changes the Grameen Bank made. Interesting because it gives and overview of what the bank was like before and what it is now. But very, very in-depth and a little too repetitive. Also, since it is co-written by someone who works there it does not criticize very much. There must be problems, right?

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

An in-depth description/report of how the Grameen Bank and micro-lending started, works, and mainly, the changes incorporated in Grameen II. I got what I wanted out of it and skimmed some of it. But very interesting to hear the thinking involved.

[Jennifer Kern]

"This book captures very well the central message of Grameen - the poor always pay back... I hope this book will inspire readers to play an active role in creating a world free from poverty."
- Muhammad Yunus, Founder, Grameen Bank, and winner of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

I studied under this man. Excllent

[Shikha · Rating 5 out of 5]

a good comparision of classical grameen one with 2