Posts Tagged ‘Asli Demirgüç-Kunt’
Fork in the road leads to microfinance debate
NYU (US)—With roughly 40 to 80 percent of people in developing economies lacking access to formal banking services, microfinance has emerged to fill the lending gap. Reliable financial services, such as those provided by the microfinance model, could improve the lives of hundreds of millions, perhaps billions, of low-income people.
An intense debate, however, continues over the movement toward greater commercialization of an arena once led by nonprofits. New findings by Jonathan Morduch of the Financial Access Initiative, housed at New York University’s Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, and Robert Cull and Asli Demirgüç-Kunt of the World Bank, advance the debate. The research reveals complementary paths to a successful expansion of the microfinance industry, a sector that services more than 150 million customers. Continue…
