45 years have passed since the first loan that was the germ of microcredits

The Bangladeshi Nobel Peace Prize winner 45 years ago Muhammad Yunus She granted a small loan to a poor woman who was to be the seed of the creation of her own bank, the Grameen Bank, with which she would formalize the microcredit system.

Mohammad Babul grew up listening to the stories of his grandmother Sufia Khatun about how her small loan led to the birth of an organization that has transformed the lives of millions of poor people in Bangladesh and around the world.

“I was not yet born when it all happened, but during my childhood my grandmother told me many stories about the trials she went through and how the (future) loan of the Grameen Bank helped her earn a living. “Babul, 37, who drives an electric rickshaw or three-wheeled taxi, told Efe.

Sufia, who had been abandoned by her husband with two dependent daughters, was running a small bamboo stool business near a university campus in the village of Jobra, in southern Bangladesh, when she met the professor of Yunus economy.

The woman was struggling to make ends meet, so Yunus loaned her the money, which allowed her to increase her income through the investment. After Sufia decided to go to a bank to apply for a new loan, but there she laughed at not having a guarantee, so the economist intervened.

This new loan led Sufia to increase her profits, but the banks still did not want to do business with someone like her, with few resources, so Yunus then decided to create her own system to grant money to the most. destitute.

So, still informally, On September 19, 1976, “the bank of the poor” was born in Jobra., with a first loan to Sufia which would be extended that year to ten beneficiaries.

In 1983, Grameen Bank was integrated into the Bangladesh banking system to begin its formal activities, reaching in 2019 more than 9 million beneficiaries in some 81,600 localities, 97% of them women, with disbursements since then over 25 000 million dollars, according to bank data.

Sufia died in 1997, nine years before Yunus and his Grameen Bank were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

MICROCREDITS

Among the beneficiaries of the Grameen Bank is Mohammad Solaiman, a resident of the southern village of Mekhal who decided in 2018 to borrow 50,000 taka (about $ 600) to boost his grocery store.

“This money has really helped me grow my business. I paid them off and now I have mortgaged my family’s land to get 1 million taka (about $ 11,700) in cash loan from Janata (state) bank “Solaiman, 65, explained to Efe.

The new president of the Grameen Bank, AKM Saiful Majid, explained to Efe that while “some people wasted their money, (…) it can be said that about 80% of the beneficiaries of a loan managed to get out of extreme poverty. “

In addition, “until February of last year, our recovery rate was 99%. It has gone down a bit because of covid-19, but even in this situation, at the end of last year 95% of beneficiaries have repaid their loans, “he added.

The amount loaned has also increased over the years, from the original 5,000 taka ($ 60) in the 1980s, “a lot” then, to 25,000 taka (around $ 300) today, which can reach $ 60,000. 4 million taka (about $ 50,000) on a “business perspective,” Majid noted.

In addition, the bank now has new programs, such as support for the education of children or for beggars to get off the streets and start a new life by putting them in contact with businesses, an initiative that has already reached 21,000. beneficiaries, he said.

POVERTY REDUCTION

The success of Grameen Bank has spawned a microcredit boom in this Asian country, with more than 800 NGOs and microfinancers helping some 31 million beneficiaries, according to data from the Bangladesh Microcredit Regulatory Authority.

Yunus aseguró en el pasado que dentro de su concepción del “social business” está la de una compañía que no reparte dividendos, sino que se centra en solucionar problemas de tipo social y puede recuperar progresivamente la reversión realizada, y en este proceso las mujeres son password.

“We focus on women and one of the seven principles of” social business “is to be consistent with gender. We are careful not to fall into the trap of the traditional economy, where men are promoted and women are relegated, ”said the founder of the“ bank for the poor ”in an interview with Efe in 2018.

Several economists claim that this microcredit system was one of the engines that succeeded in reducing poverty and empowering women in Bangladesh, where more than 80% of the population fell below the poverty line in the 1970s, at 24.3% in 2016, according to the World Bank. The data.

“One of the biggest achievements of the Grameen Bank is to have given microcredit an institutional form. By giving it an institutional form, it weakened the mohajons (intermediaries) of the past, ”Anu Mohammad, professor of economics at Jahangirnagar University, told EFE.

(with information from the EFE)

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