Nobel peace laureate Muhammad Yunus urges banks to set up microfinance subsidiaries
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus on Saturday urged banks to set up subsidiaries to make small loans to the world's poor, saying "the exciting area" offered plentiful business opportunities.
Speaking at an Asian economic forum in southern China, Yunus said he has called on conventional banks to enter the microcredit field pioneered by the Grameen Bank he founded, and with which he shared last year's prize.
"So far the response has been not as enthusiastic as I would have liked," Yunus told reporters at the Boao Forum for Asia.
"This is an exciting area, and a huge number of people around the world are waiting for this service," Yunus said. Conventional banks "have the expertise, they have the knowledge. If they open up their services, this could be done faster than anybody else could do."
Grameen Bank, set up by Yunus in 1983, was the first lender to provide microcredit, giving very small loans to poor Bangladeshis — almost all of them women — who did not qualify for loans from conventional banks.
