Saturday, January 08, 2011

Another revealing look into how microlending got out of hand in India. Still, the idea itself still seems sound, it looks more that some lenders got too greedy and their intentions were mainly self-enrichment and profit rather than helping the poor.
An interesting excerpt:

Overlending in Andhra Pradesh calls to mind the U.S. subprime crisis, says Lakshmi Shyam-Sunder, director of corporate risk at International Finance Corp. in Washington, which invests in microlenders. “Subprime lending was initially seen as extending homeownership to poorer people, doing good,” Shyam-Sunder says. As the industry expanded, making a profit became more important to some lenders, she says.