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Small Loans, Mixed Results
economics and developmentMicrofinance institutions lend small sums of money to people who are too poor to for an ordinary bank loan. Because borrowers often have no property to offer as , many lenders rely instead on small groups whose members guarantee each other's repayments. In the 1990s, striking early success stories led many observers to microfinance as a powerful weapon against poverty.
More recent research has produced a more picture. Several large trials found that access to small loans helped some existing businesses to grow but did little to raise average household income. , critics pointed to cases in which borrowers took out new loans simply to repay old ones. Supporters that microfinance was never meant to end poverty on its own, and that safe savings accounts and basic insurance may matter as much to poor households as credit does.