Micro-Credit : A West Bengal Perspective

Abstract

Micro-finance as a concept emerged when social innovators began to offer financial services to the working poor - those who were previously considered "un-bankable" because of their lack of collateral. Once given the opportunity, not only did the clients expand their business and increase their incomes, but also their high repayment rates demonstrated that the poor are capable of transforming their own lives given the chance. The most common micro-finance product is a micro-credit loan. In the process the poor gets a secured place to save their money, earn social security and leadership qualities and realise the need of education. Micro-credit loans empower the poor to improve their own lives. By giving the world's poor a hand up, not a handout, micro-finance can help break the vicious cycle of poverty in as little as a single generation.