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Contents
List of Tables and Figures
viii
Acknowledgements
ix
List of Abbreviations
xi
1 A Framework for Engaging Microfinance
1
2 A Genealogy of Microfinance
38
3 The Financialization of Poverty
78
4 Financializing Public Goods
121
5 Mechanisms of a Microfinance Crisis
160
6 At the Crossroads of Development and Finance
195
Appendix
214
Notes
225
References
239
Index
275
vii
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A Framework for Engaging
Microfinance
The gospel of harmony between labor and capital has been
preached now for almost fifty years, and bourgeois philanthropy has expended large sums of money to prove this
harmony of interests by building model institutions, and, as
we shall see later, we are today exactly where we were fifty
years ago.
Friedrich Engels, The Housing Question (1935)
Towards a transnational political economy of microfinance
Contemporary capitalism is a financialized capitalism, and microfinance
is its response to poverty. Microfinance taps into the capital markets and
uses philanthropic support to build banks because – its proponents argue
and its supporters believe – these banks help to build a better world. Far
from being unimportant or eccentric elements of global finance, the
multitudes of tiny transactions that are organized in the microfinance
system stand paradigmatically for the hopes and contradictions of the
present, finance-based economic order. That a financial subindustry
could come to stand for such lofty aims as ending poverty and empowering women is a phenomenon to be explained and questioned. But
microfinance is more than mere lofty aims. It also engenders concrete practices which shape people’s lives in different ways, generating
new narratives, roles, risks and capital flows at local and global scales.
Microfinance today is increasingly a financial system in its own right,
which uses an array of different methods to channel return-seeking
capital into Asian slums, African villages and Latin American favelas,
bringing them closer to the core of contemporary capitalist activity.
1
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To explain how this could arise, and what it means, is the challenge
of this book.
The microfinance system takes financial markets to the extreme, using
finance to build economic relationships which stretch from the very
richest investors to the poorest borrowers – from billionaires such as
George Soros and Pierre Omidyar to African, Asian and Latin American
seamstresses, peasants and rickshaw drivers. These model institutions of
“bourgeois philanthropy” have been invested with the greatest expectations: microfinance institutions are supposed to help to grow stunted
“bonsai people”,1 empower oppressed women, “financially include” the
disenfranchised, help policy-makers achieve variously defined “development” goals and replace the ineffectual developmental state with
more efficient self-help through credit. As a leading global microfinance
network explains in The Business of Fighting Poverty, “we use your philanthropic support to build banks for the poor in some of the world’s most
remote and difficult places . . . Our goal is to help break down the walls
of financial exclusion, in order to build a world in which no one is shut
out of all that society has to offer” (ACCION International 2009: 3).
According to the father figure of the sector, Muhammad Yunus,
microfinance should confine poverty to “poverty museums” within two
generations (Yunus 1997). Only time will tell. But meanwhile, a significant and growing body of literature has controversially engaged with
how microfinance activities impact the target populations – including,
among others, Armendáriz and Morduch (2005), Dichter and Harper
(2007), Collins et al. (2009), Bateman (2010; 2011a), Duvendack et al.
(2011b), Karim (2011), Roodman (2012a), Klas and Mader (2014) and
Bateman and Maclean (forthcoming) – and reached vastly divergent
conclusions. For some, microfinance sanguinely “presents a series of
exciting possibilities for extending markets, reducing poverty, and fostering social change” (Armendáriz and Morduch 2005: 3); for others,
because of the innate incompatibility of these goals, “[p]ut simply,
microfinance does not work” (Bateman 2010: 1).
In the light of this profusion and confusion, this book’s goal is
to move forward the debate which has very often revolved around
the question “Does microfinance work?” by asking: “What does
microfinance work at – and how?” In doing so, this book examines contemporary microfinance through the lens of financialization, and it also
seeks to understand financialization through microfinance. By proposing to analyse the transnational political economy of microfinance as
financializing poverty, this work connects with and builds upon foregoing critical analyses, particularly Weber’s (2006b; 2010) explication of
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microcredit as a political tool for neoliberal reform, Elyachar’s (2005)
analysis of “markets of dispossession” and A. Roy’s (2010) conceptualization of “poverty capital”. As these authors have established,
microfinance has been part of a profound transformation of the logics of development since the 1980s, both materially and ideologically
intertwining with the expansionary logics of financial markets.
Heloise Weber explains microfinance as a “disciplinary” governance
tool to entrench market-based development even in the face of resistance and dissent: “a neoliberal approach to poverty” which justifies
and demands conducive macrolevel policy adjustments such as financial
sector liberalization (Weber 2006a: 51). Microcredit, Weber argues, was
a logical policy choice for international financial institutions, development organizations and other policy-makers pursuing neoliberal reform,
thanks to its “dual function” of supporting structural adjustment economically and politically stymieing resistance:
Firstly, as a financially steered targeted poverty reduction strategy,
microcredit, via its implications for policy, facilitates financial sector
liberalisation as well as extending the policy of trade in financial services to the local level. Secondly, [it] has a disciplinary potential that
renders it particularly conducive to functioning as a political safetynet. In the latter case, it offsets “income-insecurity” and attempts to
absorb surplus labour in growing informal sectors.
(Weber 2002: 541)
But microfinance as “empowerment debt”, Julia Elyachar (2005: 192)
argues, goes beyond such political-economic transformation, thanks
to an insidious capacity to transform developmental subjects’ attitudes and values by implanting “new subjectivities that are more
conducive to neoliberal market rule”. Microcredit supplied through
non-governmental organizations (NGOs) helps to build the software, so
to speak, to match the hardware of the neoliberal market by teaching the
“generation of structural adjustment”, Elyachar (2005: 27) argues, “to
fend for itself”. To be “empowered” via microdebt requires the subjects
of market “rule” to bring their cultural habits and social networks into
the marketplace and, in acting as entrepreneurs who have been dispossessed of their prior identities and established ways, learn or “come to
accept one version of the market as the only possible market” (Elyachar
2005: 6): the “free” market reigned by the “invisible hand”.2
Lamia Karim’s (2011: xvi/f.) ethnography in Bangladesh, however,
highlights the disjuncture between the theoretical free-market relations
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presupposed by the microfinance model and the real, messy social relations which microborrowers live in. Instead of broadly empowering
women, Karim explains microfinance as in fact empowering the NGOs
which provide it, positioning them as a “shadow state” that is endowed
with a proprietary “power/knowledge”, allowing them to define how
poverty is to be understood and alleviated (Karim 2011: 33, 163ff.).
Ananya Roy (2010: 30), consequently, conceptualizes microfinance as
“poverty capital”: “a subprime frontier where development capital and
finance capital merge and collaborate such that new subjects of development are identified and new territories of investment are opened up
and consolidated”. In what she terms “millennial development” – the
currently dominant vision of the combined agency of empowered poor
and non-poor individuals apolitically creating development in a mutual
effort – “poverty capital” brings together the idea of “microfinance as
a resource”, which actors such as NGOs and the World Bank employ
to produce truths and knowledge about poverty, and of “poverty as a
resource” to be made amenable to capital.
In my analysis I borrow from Roy the image of the financial “frontier”, which for the present purpose illustrates better than “fringe” or
“sub-subprime” how lands of opportunity are opening up for finance,
thanks to microfinance – only seemingly financially deserted, yet fertile (and distinctly gendered) spaces ready for financial settlement and
enclosure. With Elyachar I note the contradictory and multiplicitous
relationship between debt as a means of empowerment and as a means
of dispossession – a duality which is perhaps most especially marked in
the developmental context. I employ Weber’s foundational insight into
microfinance’s disciplinary potential to entrench the (financial) market
via its “dual function” of facilitating neoliberal rule both at the policy
level and in everyday life. In comparison with the ethnographic richness
and crucial detail that is offered by Elyachar (2005) and Karim (2011),
and the intricate insights into the dynamics at the centres of developmental power which A. Roy (2010) offers, the aim of this book can
only be relatively more modest while still aiming for a substantive contribution. This contribution is to apply the financialization approach
to microfinance, seeking to understand the global microfinance phenomenon from a political economy perspective which emphasizes the
central role of finance in contemporary capitalism and to show how
the financialization of poverty works in practice. The book also investigates the boundaries of this financialization by studying the ongoing
expansion of (micro)finance beyond entrepreneurship and consumption and into the socially sensitive realm of public goods – where these
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goods, too, are made amenable for market expansion and effectively
financialized – and investigating the crisis events which have occurred
where the microfinance sector reaches its limits.
The argument made in this book builds upon the aforementioned
analyses which identify microfinance as a tool for building markets
and exerting power, capable of bestowing new forms of legitimacy
upon the ongoing transnational project of building the market in the
name of development and of dispossessing people of their identities
and networks. As Morgan Brigg (2001: 252) underscores, the effects are
profound:
In reinscribing the neoliberal and developmentalist approach at the
micro level through innovative disciplinary techniques, microcredit
programs have the effect of promoting entrepreneurial subjective
modalities over other ways of being and of integrating Third World
subjects into financial and economic networks and the development dispositif. In this process, poverty is depoliticized through an
individualistic rather than redistributive approach to its alleviation.
While the critical literature has thus recognized an increasing centrality of microfinance in market-building and the overall neoliberal
reprogramming of developmental subjects, noting this as an ongoing
“financialization of development” (Roy 2010: 47), the operations of
microfinance as a financial system, rather than as a dependent component of the broader neoliberal politics of development, remain underexplored. The original political-economic function of microfinance may
well have primarily been to promote the entrepreneurially individualistic rationalities embedded in Washington and Post-Washington
Consensus approaches to poverty alleviation and development, in both
an operational and an ideological sense. But microfinance increasingly
also possesses a meaning and functionality of its own, beyond its generically market-building function and beyond financializing the project of
development, in turning poverty into a problem of finance and potentially making it the basis for new capital–labour relations that are built
through finance. The microfinance we are dealing with today is more
than just a market for small loans and savings; it is a potent force at the
frontier of transnational finance.
This political economy analysis therefore emphasizes the expansion of financial markets into new terrains of accumulation through
microfinance – that being what microfinance works at, in this analysis.
Of course, microfinance remains an intervention that is materially and
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ideologically wedded to the neoliberal politics of development, which
still benefits from massive political support from key players such as
the World Bank and major national donor agencies. But, to drastically
simplify what the following chapters will explain, it also increasingly
represents an autonomous financial subsystem that builds credit relations with poor people, for the price of surplus extraction – how it works.
Having arisen from the contested developmental politics of the late 20th
century, drawing on older colonial and postcolonial lineages of credit
as a social policy, the microfinance sector today serves as a nexus for
new market-based interactions of capital with the poor, centred on the
economic activities that the poor perform in poverty.
My argument that contemporary microfinance is in this way
financializing poverty represents a counterpart to David Roodman’s
(2012a: 266) conclusion that “the greatest strength of microfinance has
been in building industries that enrich the fabric of nations” – Roodman
means financial industries.3 Indeed, the strength of microfinance in
building a financial industry which plays “Banker to the Poor” (Yunus
2003), unlike many other strengths that are claimed for it, is undeniable,
albeit all too rarely recognized for what it is. But the portrayal of this
financial industry-building as an indubitable gain for the poor – or the
“fabric” of their “nations” – can only rest on a belief “that sustainably
extending the financial system to poor people is development, appropriately defined” (Roodman 2012a: 266).4 The result of this “sustainable”
extension of the financial system, I show, is that through such processes
as the successive commercialization and deepening union with mainstream financial markets, and the expansion of microfinance into new
fields such as credit for public goods, the system of microfinance has
expanded the frontier of finance and opened up new terrains for capital in its restless and unrelenting search for opportunities to generate
and extract surplus. Does this constitute development? Perhaps, but a
thoroughly financialized capitalist variant of development.
This functionality has grown all the more acute with the ongoing financial calamities after 2008 revealing the insecurities of core
financial markets and sparking a quest among capital-holders for alternative sites of financial accumulation. An “impact investing” partner
at PricewaterhouseCoopers answered the question “What is the main
problem with microfinance?” with: “there is a lot of money but very
few organisations capable of absorbing it . . . microfinance companies
need to restructure to be capable of absorbing new funds” (iD4D 2012).
Capital is in restless migration in search of fertile new lands, and the
still-growing economies of the global South – where business guru C.K.
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Prahalad (2004) prophesied a “fortune at the bottom of the pyramid” –
in particular have been sighted as attractive new frontiers. Brazen financial frontiersmen (and some women) are rushing in to seek the fortunes
which reportedly lie in the social economies of the global poor. With
the expanding microfinance sector not only are the poor increasingly
included in the financial market, but also the institutions of financial capital which supply the capital for microfinance are increasingly
willing and able to include the poor as their subjects. At the same
time, microcredit still appears to many to be a feminist, pro-poor,
ostensibly social aspect of the economy, “defusing”, as Nancy Fraser
(2009) argues, radical feminist resistance to neoliberalism while actively
fuelling what Milford Bateman (2010) terms the “destructive rise of local
neoliberalism”. Microfinance promises a “win-win potion for development and capital” (Fernando 2006b: 194) built on an imagery of
indigenous solidarity, individual agency and entrepreneurial (feminine)
creative potency, while inseparably expanding the pool of investable
assets. Its utopianism extends to proposing a resolution of multiple
dichotomies: seemingly unproblematically uniting philanthropy with
business, charity with self-reliance, financialization with democratization, even bringing NGOs and banks into symbiosis, and apolitically
resolving the differences between capital and labour through credit.
The consequence, as Christa Wichterich (2012: 407) says, given the
majority-female borrowers, is nothing less than “a feminization of
financialization of village life”, and “a feminization of indebtedness”.
With this, microfinance is not only a small part of financialization, but
a leading edge where capital confronts potentially vast opportunities
for accumulation by mobilizing and harnessing the labour power of the
poor together with the developmental imaginaries of the rich into the
financial system.
Clearly, microfinance is neither financialized capitalism’s only
response to poverty nor the only element of the ongoing financialization
of poverty. A broader definition should include (among others) processes of land-grabbing, food commodity speculation, “social business”
expansion and perhaps even certain new modes of welfare provision
(cf. Lavinas 2013). Neither does microfinance generate the same uniform, sweeping transformations everywhere it goes, simply turning
poverty into just a financial relation and nothing more (chapters 4
and 5 discuss the limitations and vulnerabilities of the financialization
of poverty at length). But microfinance does currently present itself
as the crucial salient in a broader drive of financial markets deeper
into the communities and livelihoods of poor people in the global
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South, as private capital is increasingly partaking in the expansion of
microfinance. Indeed, for this reason alone arguably the ambivalence –
and maybe even the potential for counterhegemonic agency – which
Fernando (2006a: 7ff.) still made out in earlier microcredit programming is absent (or rapidly receding) from today’s microfinance, which
instead is trailblazing on the frontiers of a new hegemonic project: the
financialization of all aspects of life.
The state of microfinance: A primer
Microfinance is not a stable monolith, having as a concept and a sector undergone significant transformations over time, and remaining
a contested terrain between competing forces that are pursuing different ideals and technological approaches (Khan 2011). Yet for all
practical purposes there is such a thing as a recognizable microfinance,
which is the sale of standardized financial services in small quantities at high volumes. The basic product is credit, running on cycles
that are usually shorter than a year, offered on a cost-covering-toprofitable basis, normally with successively larger loans being issued in
each cycle.
Under the heading “What Is Microfinance?”, the Consultative Group
to Assist the Poor (CGAP), the World Bank’s in-house microfinance
agency,5 explains:
“Microfinance” is often defined as financial services for poor and lowincome clients offered by different types of service providers. In practice, the term is often used more narrowly to refer to loans and
other services from providers that identify themselves as “microfinance
institutions” (MFIs) . . . methods include group lending and liability,
pre-loan savings requirements, gradually increasing loan sizes, and
an implicit guarantee of ready access to future loans . . . More broadly,
microfinance refers to a movement that envisions a world in which lowincome households have permanent access to a range of high quality and
affordable financial services offered by a range of retail providers to
finance income-producing activities, build assets, stabilize consumption, and protect against risks. These services include savings, credit,
insurance, remittances, and payments, and others.
(CGAP 2012; emphasis added)
While this is but one possible description, it comes from a key organization that aspires to represent the “consensus” in the field. It reveals
several things. First, microfinance can be conceived as services for
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certain populations, as services from certain providers and as a broader
movement. Second, it is neither very clear who the clients are – poor
or “low-income” being broad categories – nor who exactly microfinance
providers are. Third, the focus is on loans, although other services are
also offered. Fourth, there is a vision or idea behind microfinance that is
adopted by a broader social movement and promoted out of conviction
(and potentially also against resistance).
The transnational microfinance sector brings together a diverse field
of actors that are situated at the intersection of the state, the market and
the civic, including:
• the key organizations “on the ground”: microfinance institutions
(MFIs) of different types, such as Grameen Bank (Bangladesh),
SEWA Bank (India) and Banco Compartamos (Mexico), many of
which began or still operate as NGOs or cooperatives, while others
are strictly for-profit banks;
• international financial institutions, including the World Bank and
the Asian Development Bank, acting as funders, standardizers, political promoters and resource bases for MFIs;
• government development agencies and multilateral development
bodies such as the US Agency for International Development (USAID)
and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD),
funding and promoting MFIs;
• specialized transnational funder organizations of different kinds,
such as ACCION International, Oikocredit or Kiva, often also acting
as think-tanks and advocacy organizations;
• philanthropic funds and foundations, such as Oxfam and the Gates
Foundation, funding MFIs or operating their own microfinance
divisions;
• banks and other for-profit financial institutions, channelling investor
funds from large and retail investors to MFIs;
• specialized microfinance investment vehicles (MIVs) and investment
funds;
• private wealthy individuals, often ostentatiously funding and publicly promoting microfinance;
• a broader social movement that is committed to the idea of
microfinance, whose members include small-fry investors who often
use person-to-person (P2P) or pseudo-P2P platforms, such as Kiva, to
fund loans.
Many of these actor groups can be characterized as being a part of
civil society. Notably it is the state, the market and the civic which all
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interpenetrate here, forming what Aitken (2010) terms the “ambiguous
incorporations” of microfinance.
CGAP does not specify how many people actually use microfinancial
services in practice, nor to what extent they use them. For an industry that is so prominent in international development discourse and
so strongly bent on the quantification of financial performance, it is
surprising how hard reliable aggregate figures are to find. The investororiented database MIX, which uses only voluntarily reported data,
offered its last published aggregate estimate in December 2008: “2,420
MFIs, representing 99 million borrowers in 117 countries” (MIX 2008a).
More recent, unpublished numbers suggest that in 2012 there were a
minimum 1,263 MFIs, with 91.4 million borrowers who had borrowed
$100.7 billion (MIX 2013). The Microcredit Summit Campaign, on the
other hand, claims that as of December 2011, 195 million clients were
served by 3,652 MFIs, and more than three-quarters of the borrowers
were women (Maes and Reed 2012: 3).6 Ultimately, different understandings of microfinance can generate different figures; these numbers
at least give a rough idea of the scale. Microfinance clearly affects a significant number of people – assuming an average borrower’s household
size to be five, it may even fairly directly affect a billion people. And
although it is small compared with other parts of the financial system,
at over $100 billion the sector is no longer negligible.
What does the microfinance industry seek to do with these $100.7
billion and 91.4 million or 195 million clients, and what impact does
this have? For most of its historical existence – until well into the 2000s –
the microfinance premise was explicitly about enterprise: improved
access to finance was to facilitate poor people setting up or expanding
small businesses. After pioneers such as Muhammad Yunus had noted
that women were more likely to repay loans, an explicit focus on women
microentrepreneurs developed, with proponents commonly asserting
that gender empowerment through loan-financed entrepreneurship was
a key reason for being involved in microfinance (Rhyne and Rotblatt
1994). As a publication in 1989 by the pioneer network ACCION International explained,
The programs’ raison d’etre is: impact on the lives of the beneficiaries. This impact can be economic, social and human, and occurs
through continued assistance to each beneficiary’s source of livelihood. This process leads to stabilization and growth among the firms
that are assisted, as witnessed by the growing amounts of working
capital loans that each firm can absorb. The programs, then, attempt
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Index
ACCION, 2, 9, 10, 32, 53, 56, 68, 83,
84, 171, 205, 212
ACCION Center for Financial
Inclusion, 18
accumulation
of capital, see capital accumulation
by dispossession, see dispossession
through finance, see financialization
actor-centered institutionalism, see
institutional analysis
agents, see loan officers; external
collection agents
agrarian crisis, 165–6, 187, 190, 191
agriculture, 46, 48, 50, 56, 124, 146,
164–6, 187, 189, 208
aid, see international aid
Aitken, Rob, 10, 25, 68, 96–7, 100
Akula, Vikram, 171, 174, 176
Andhra Pradesh, 71–2, 94, 141–2,
146–56, 160–94, 211
microfinance crisis of 2010, 160–94,
211; effects of, 180–4;
interpretations of, 184–9;
layered causation of, 189–91;
warnings in advance of, 171–3
microfinance ordinance, 161, 162,
177–80, 183, 184, 186, 191–2
aquifers, 137–9
Arbeitskraftunternehmer, see
entreployees
Aristotle, 28
arrests, 72, 178
see also protest; violence
Arunachalam, Ramesh, 167, 170, 176,
179, 182–5
ASA, 49, 53, 83
Asmitha Microfin, 176
austerity, 22, 54–5, 117, 212
Australia, 143
Bajde, Domen, 64, 85–6
BancoSol, 56–7
Bangladesh
and international affairs, 47–8, 65,
92
and microfinance, 38, 42–4, 47–9,
52–3, 67, 76, 102, 160, 164,
173, 223
research on microfinance in, 3, 11,
16
Bangladesh Rural Advancement
Committee (BRAC), 47–9, 53,
66–8
Bank Rakyat Indonesia, 34, 53, 56, 67,
215, 221
BASIX, 164, 181
Bateman, Milford, 2, 7, 14, 15, 53, 54,
57, 73, 74, 206, 212
Begum, Sufiya, 42, 49
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation,
see Gates, Bill
Bolivia, 55–7, 92, 124, 125, 130, 186,
205, 217, 219
microfinance crisis in, 68–71, 74–6,
192, 193, 205
bonsai people, 2, 203
borrower groups, 8, 11, 13, 49, 53, 60,
73, 94, 101–3, 111, 163, 164, 165,
170, 172, 173, 177, 190
compare Self-Help Groups
Bosnia-Herzegovina, 69, 73–6, 192,
193
Bottom of the Pyramid, 7, 36, 61
Brazil, 208, 210
Brigg, Morgan, 5, 93, 114
bubbles, financial, see microfinance
crises, Andhra Pradesh
microfinance crisis of 2010;
subprime
Burkuna Faso, 126, 221
Burma, 44, 45, 46
Calder, Lendol, 30, 81, 108
Cameroon, 219
Can Tho, Vietnam, 122, 142–6, 154–5
275
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276
Index
capabilities, 79, 105
capital accumulation, 5–7, 21–2, 24–5,
80–1, 100, 105–6, 115–19, 166,
198–203
capitalism, 1, 19–26, 29, 31, 40, 80,
104–7, 115–19, 202–3, 211, 213
capitalization (of benefits from
access), 134–6, 155–6, 158, 204
cash transfers, 208–9
caste, 94, 99, 154
CDO, see securitization
CGAP, see Consulative Group to Assist
the Poor
Chang, Ha-Joon, 15, 206, 207
charity, see philanthropy
China, 34, 206, 215
Citigroup, 66, 101, 112
civil society, 9, 40, 59, 75, 76, 93, 122,
127, 131, 199
class
in relation to financialisation, 21,
23, 24, 26, 30, 31, 78
in relation to microfinance, 61, 85,
94, 104–8, 111
in South Asia, 46, 52
see also caste; rentiers
client protection, 75, 177–9, 185, 186
client stories, 11, 82–4, 105, 198
climate change, 165, 187
see also drought
Clinton, Hillary, 92
club goods, 137–8
Cochabamba, Bolivia, 130, 131
coercion of clients, 73, 96, 110, 157,
173, 176–9, 182–3, 185
collateral, 33, 46, 62, 90, 102, 109,
111, 114, 177, 216
see also forced savings
collateralized debt obligation
see securitization
collective action, 84, 137, 141, 205
colonialism, 6, 39, 41, 44–7, 75, 77,
129
Comilla Model, 47–9
commercialization of microfinance, 6,
42, 56–7, 62, 75–6, 97, 114, 161
see also equity investment in
microfinance; initial public
offer
common pool resources, 37, 137–8,
144, 165, 166, 187
commons, 122, 158
Compartamos, 9, 67–8, 96–7, 105,
112–13
competition among microfinance
institutions, 14, 60, 69–76, 161,
167, 171–3, 187–91
compulsory savings, see forced
savings
Consulative Group to Assist the Poor
(CGAP), 8, 10, 11, 33, 34, 65, 68,
114, 188, 205, 218
founding and importance of, 18, 41,
58–62, 76, 92, 97, 199
views on microfinance crises, 69, 72,
74, 171, 173
see also World Bank
consumer credit, 18, 70–1, 74, 109,
171, 195
consumerism, 31, 193
consumers, poor people as, 127, 130,
201, 208, 209, 211
see also Bottom of the Pyramid
consumption
altruistic action as, 64, 87
clients’, 4, 12, 13, 18, 103, 200
smoothing, 8, 11, 18, 36,
109, 203
cooperative credit, 44–9, 53, 75, 163,
197, 208
Cooperative Credit Societies Act of
1904, 45
corporate governance, 21, 175–6,
185–6, 188, 189
cost recovery, 56, 125, 129–34, 139
Côte d’Ivoire, 223
coupon pool capitalism, 23–4, 26
coupons, 23, 110, 199
credit
as social policy, 6, 41, 44, 46, 49,
55–6, 163, 190, 204, 213
theories of, 3, 27–32
see also morality of credit and
finance
Crédit Agricole, 183
crises
recent financial, 6, 90–1, 161–2,
213
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Third World debt, 54
see also microfinance crises, Andhra
Pradesh microfinance crisis of
2010
Darling, Malcolm, 44–5
debt, see credit (theories of);
overindebtedness
debt relief, 71, 117, 202
deception, see disinformation
de Goede, Marieke, 30, 39, 82, 97, 110
Dell, Michael, 84
demand for microfinance, 65, 70,
108–10, 114, 126, 136, 143, 171,
189–91
democracy, 7, 64, 110, 206, 210, 212
Denmark, 143
Department for International
Development (DFID), 13, 14, 74,
127, 222
Deutsche Bank, 101, 183, 215
Deutschmann, Christoph, 21, 23, 29,
30, 107
development, concept of, 2–7, 35–6,
49–51, 205–11
Dichter, Thomas, 2, 14, 109
discipline, 4–5, 17, 32, 86, 93–103,
108, 110, 118–19, 148, 159, 173,
209
see also coercion of clients;
governmentality
disinformation, 109, 167, 182
dispossession, 3, 4, 5, 80, 159, 193
donor funding, see subsidization of
microfinance
drought, 165–6, 187, 190
ecology, 128, 132, 144–6, 156, 206–7
see also agrarian crisis; climate
change
The Economist (magazine), 54, 123,
164
education
of clients, see client protection
and microfinance, 11, 13, 18, 63,
123, 126, 139, 201
electricity, 123–5
Elyachar, Julia, 3, 4, 27, 80, 82, 90, 198
emancipation, 93, 209–11
277
empowerment
concept of, 3, 4, 17, 27, 28, 82, 84,
90, 93
evidence for, 13, 17
entreployees, 105–7, 200
see also entrepreneurship
entrepreneurship, 5, 11, 15–16, 26, 31,
54, 55, 64, 81–6, 92, 99, 104–6,
198, 203
see also entreployees
entrepreneurs, women as, 7, 10, 82–3
Equity Bank Limited, 67
equity investment in microfinance,
61, 63, 65–8, 100–1, 161, 164,
167–9, 170, 174–6, 180, 182–3,
188–9, 190
see also initial public offer
Ershad, Husain Muhammad, 53
European
Bank for Reconstruction and
Development (EBRD), 73
Commission, 132
Fund for Southeast Europe, 74
Investment Fund, 212
Union, 212
external collection agents, 170, 177,
183
extraction, see surplus extraction
farmers, see agriculture
farmer suicides, 165
see also suicides of microfinance
clients
fatwa, 170
feminism, 7, 12, 50–1
finance, concept of, 110–11
see also financialization, concept of;
morality of credit and finance
financial
inclusion, 17–19, 68, 88–90, 100,
111, 117, 118, 125, 160, 183,
197, 203, 206, 212
innovation, 22, 106, 110–11, 115,
159
instability hypothesis, 161–2
literacy, 197; compare rationality of
clients
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financial – continued
performance, see profitability of
microfinance
sector reform, 92, 163–4; see also
regulation
financialization
concept of, 7–8, 19–27, 198–203; as
a change in accumulation
patterns, 24–5; as a culture of
finance and risk, 25–6; as a
historical period, 21–2; as
coupon pool capitalism and
disintermediation, 23–4; as a
rise in rentier incomes, 22–3
definition of, 27
of poverty, 78–120, 191, 195, 196,
199; particularly, 80–1, 111,
117–19
fish pond toilet, 144
flooding, 165–6, 187, 190
fly-by-night operations, see rogue MFI
allegations
FMO (development agency), 66
forced savings, 33–4, 61
Foucault, Michel, 93
compare discipline; governmentality
Fraser, Nancy, 7
fringe finance, 4, 68, 97
frontier, 4–8, 27, 80–1, 118–19, 193,
198–9
full cost recovery, see cost recovery
governance of water, see water,
paradigms of governance
government, 35, 91–3, 122, 128–31,
157, 207–11
of Andhra Pradesh, 71–2, 162,
164–5, 167, 177–80, 183–4, 186,
190–2
of Bangladesh, 48, 52–3, 75, 92
of India, 169, 184, 187
of the United Kingdom, 45, 54
governmentality, 91, 93, 96, 97,
100–3, 118, 119, 195, 199
see also coercion of clients;
discipline
Graeber, David, 28, 202
Grameen
Bank, 9, 56, 60, 64, 73, 90, 92, 124,
199, 211; founding of, 42, 52–3;
transformation of, 60–1
Phone, 65
Greece, 117
Green Revolution, 46
see also agriculture
groundwater, 141, 145, 146–7, 166
see also aquifers
group lending, see borrower groups
guarantees from public funding
bodies, 66, 112–14
see also subsidization of
microfinance
Guatemala, 193
G8, 117
Gates, Bill, 9, 64, 84, 85, 111, 121,
126, 134
gender, see feminism; women
genealogy, 39–40
General Agreement on Trade in
Services (GATS), 132
Germany, 44, 45, 46, 66, 208
Ghana, 51, 219
ghar banga, see house breaking
ghost clients, 183
GIZ/GTZ (development agency), 19,
169
globalization, 20–2, 79, 206
Gokhale, Ketaki, 172
goods theory, 136–40
see also private-public distinction
Harper, Malcolm, 2, 14, 104–6
Harrington, Brooke, 26, 31, 82
Hart, Keith, 31, 51
Harvey, David, 20, 153, 193
healthcare, 63, 123–4, 126
hedging, 87
historical institutionalism, see
institutional analysis
history of microfinance, 38–77
HIV, 124
Honduras, 219
house breaking, 101–3
household budgets, see money
management
human rights, 62, 131–2, 159, 198
Hyderabad, India, 13, 103, 146–7,
152–3, 178, 224
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identity, 27, 31, 36, 84–6, 200
ideology, 5, 6, 16, 22–6, 35, 64–5
imagination, 84, 86–7, 91, 211
impact assessments, 10–14, 98, 103,
115, 118, 203–4
incentives for loan officers, 101–2,
185–6, 190
India, 13, 34, 44–8, 52, 68–9, 71, 95,
99, 106, 109, 126, 141–2, 146–58,
160–94, 201, 202, 207, 209, 211,
219–24
microfinance crisis in, see Andhra
Pradesh microfinance crisis of
2010
political economy of, 46, 152,
163–6, 187–92
Indonesia, 34, 53, 56, 67, 208, 221
industrial policy, 15, 46, 49–51, 74,
76, 206–8
informal
lending, 35, 46, 60, 99, 151, 166,
173; see also moneylenders
sector, 3, 15, 47, 50, 51, 53–5, 69,
70, 74, 76, 92, 115
settlements, 129, 150
infrastructure, 52, 92, 126, 140, 143,
148–51, 157
Ingham, Geoffrey, 28, 30, 202
initial public offer (IPO), 66–8, 96,
105, 112, 168, 174–7, 185, 190
see also equity investment in
microfinance
institutional analysis, 39–41, 77
insurance, see microinsurance; life
insurance
Integrated Rural Development
Program (IRDP), 48, 163
Intellecap, 171, 178, 179, 182
interest rates, 68, 88, 96, 113, 115–17,
205, 214–18
in India, 141, 177–8
internalization (of benefits from
access), 134–7, 145, 155–6, 158,
204
International
Finance Corporation, 57–8, 60, 68,
74, 112–14, 183
Fund for Agricultural
Development, 9
279
Labour Association (ILO), 51
Monetary Fund (IMF), 35, 54, 55,
61, 92, 164
international aid, 50, 51, 52, 63, 133,
193, 205
intimidation, see coercion of clients
irrigation, 125–6
Italy, 44, 45, 212
Jobra Village, Bangladesh, 42
juggling, 74, 89, 103, 174
Karim, Lamia, 2, 3, 4, 17, 49,
102, 198
Karnataka, 170
Kenya, 67, 124, 222, 224
Kerala, 170, 207, 210, 220
Keynes, John Maynard, 21, 49, 120
KfW, 66, 73
Khandker, Shahidur, 11–12
Khosla, Vinod, 175
kidnapping, 102, 177
Kiva, 9, 33, 64, 85–6, 196, 201
Kohli, Atul, 56, 166, 187
Krippner, Greta, 23, 24–5, 98
Krishna crisis, 71–2, 74, 166–7, 170,
190, 191
labour-power entrepreneurs, see
entreployees
laissez-faire, 39, 76, 199
land reform, 50
land tenure, see informal settlements
LAPO, 217
Legatum Ventures, 179, 182
Lesotho, 222
liberalization, see financial sector
reform; neoliberalism; structural
adjustment
life insurance, 177, 191
loan losses, 116, 180–1
loan officers, 94–6, 99, 101–3, 106,
170, 190–1
and allegations of client abuse in
Andhra Pradesh, 177–8, 190–1;
see also coercion of clients
compare external collection agents
loan sharks, see rogue MFI
allegations
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Mahajan, Vijay, 62, 178, 180
Malegam Report, 183–4
management information systems
(MIS), 95, 101
marketization, 125, 129–31, 201, 205
see also privatization; compare
commercialization of
microfinance
Marx, Karl, 29, 31, 40, 49, 107, 170,
196, 202
Mehta, Meera, 126, 133–4, 135
Mexico, 9, 67, 68, 112, 208, 217
MFIs, see microfinance institutions
microcredit, differentiation from
microfinance, 33–4
Microcredit Summit, 10, 61–2, 68, 91
microfinance
alternatives to, 206–11
benefits for clients from, 10–12,
121, 123–5, 133–4, 198
crises, 5, 68–75, 160–94, 202, 205,
211; see also Andhra Pradesh
microfinance crisis of 2010
demand for, see demand for
microfinance
ethics of, see morality of credit and
finance
in the European Union, 212
and gender, see women
impact assessments of, see impact
assessments; randomised
controlled trials
as industry building, 6, 98
Information Exchange (MIX), 10,
62–3, 115, 117, 214–18
institutions (MFIs), 8–9, 34; see also
commercialization of
microfinance
Institutions Network, 173, 178, 180,
192
investment vehicles (MIVs), 9, 65,
101; see also equity investment
in microfinance; initial public
offer; securitization
political economy of, 1–8, 23, 81,
196–7, 201–6
and public goods, 4, 6, 121–7,
133–6, 140–59, 201, 204; see
also watsan microfinance
and savings, see microsavings;
microcredit, differentiation
from microfinance
in South Asia, 11–13, 16, 40–2,
47–9, 52–3, 56, 60–1, 71–2,
94–6, 99, 103, 127, 146–54,
160–94; see also individual
countries
surplus extraction through, 6,
104–18, 199–200, 214–18
for water and sanitation, see watsan
microfinance
microfinance, basic issues
definition of, 8, 33–4
origins of, 38–9, 42–4, 49, 52–3; see
also history of microfinance
scale of, 10, 57–8, 65–6, 111,
115–17, 205
microinsurance, 8, 33, 123
microsavings, 8, 11, 33–4, 47, 56, 57,
61, 163, 164, 169–70, 186, 197,
213; compare forced savings
Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs), 63, 127, 143, 206
Minsky, Hyman, 161–2, 182, 188, 191
mismanagement, allegations
regarding SKS Microfinance,
175–6, 185
Mission for the Elimination of Poverty
in Rural Areas (MEPMA), 148
mobilising narratives, see narratives
money, 27–32, 39, 81, 84–7, 106–8,
110, 202
management, 11–13, 87–91, 103,
111, 134–6, 155, 156
see also poverty
moneylenders, 44, 46, 52, 53, 90,
99–100, 103, 109, 110, 111, 151,
162, 172, 174, 188, 192–3
morality of credit and finance, 44,
84–7, 196–8, 200, 205–6, 213
Morduch, Jonathan, 2, 12, 14, 42, 56,
60, 114, 216
Morocco, 68, 72, 74, 76, 192, 193, 205
Muhammad, Anu, 49, 52, 125
multiple borrowing, see juggling;
overindebtedness
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municipal enterprises, 128, 130, 133,
142, 147–8, 151–3, 157, 210, 221,
222, 223
Mutually Aided Cooperative Societies
(MACS) Act, 165
Myrada, 163
narratives, 1, 32, 40, 44, 49, 81–2, 128,
198–201, 211, 213
in microfinance, 81–91, 99, 118,
119, 195, 200, 210
in watsan microfinance, 121–2, 125,
133–6, 140, 141, 146, 153, 154,
155, 157, 158–9, 201
National Bank for Agriculture and
Rural Develoment (NABARD),
163–4, 168
neoliberalism, 3–7, 49–50, 54–7, 75,
76, 77, 86, 93, 99, 130, 146, 191,
206, 211
definition of, 20–2
in India, 163–6, 189
Nepal, 219
Netherlands, The, 66, 143
New International Economic Order
(NIEO), 51
NGO, see non-governmental
organizations
Nicaragua, 69, 72–4, 76, 186, 192, 193,
205
Nigeria, 217
Nobel Prize for Peace, 38, 64–5
non-bank financial company (NBFC),
71, 164, 169–70, 174, 183
non-governmental organizations, 3, 4,
7, 9, 17, 49, 52, 53, 56–8, 60, 71,
75–7, 80, 93, 96, 100, 102, 127,
141, 148–54, 164, 167, 174–6, 199
term, 35
see also commercialization of
microfinance
No Pago movement, 72–3
Norway, 65
official development assistance (ODA),
see international aid
Ohio School, 50, 55–6, 60
Omidyar, Pierre, 2, 84–5
281
ordinance, see Andhra Pradesh
microfinance ordinance
overindebtedness, 70–5, 108–10, 136,
162, 173–4, 179, 183, 184, 193
Oxfam, 9, 33, 86
P2P microlending, see Kiva
Pakistan, 44, 47–8, 75
microfinance crisis in, 72, 74, 76,
192, 193
Pareto efficiency, 118
Paul, Axel, 28, 32, 107
peace, 64–5, 121, 124–5
pensions, 61, 81, 201
personal finance, 30–2
Peru, 219
philanthropy, 1–2, 7, 9, 30, 77, 85–6,
147, 199
Philippines, 13
piggybacking, see poaching of
Self-Help Groups
Pitt, Mark, 11–12
poaching of Self-Help Groups, 75, 165,
167, 182, 190
Polanyi, Karl, 39, 76, 199
Ponzi finance, 161–2, 170, 173, 188,
190
portfolio-at-risk, 180–1
portfolio theory, 9
Portfolios of the Poor (book), 87–9, 111,
200, 209
Porto Alegre, Brazil, 210
poverty
as a lack of money, 89, 108
understanding of, 36, 78–80, 119
power, concept of, 27–8, 82, 93, 209
Prahalad, C.K., 7, 61
pressure on borrowers, 72, 100–3, 148,
172, 190–1, 209
see also coercion of clients;
discipline
priority-sector lending, 164, 169, 183,
190, 192
private-public distinction, 134–40,
201
privatization, 54–5, 70, 125, 126,
129–30, 133, 152, 158–9, 166, 201
see also marketization; compare
commercialization
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ProCredit Bank, 72
see also small and medium-sized
enterprises
profitability of microfinance, 34, 57,
68, 116, 119, 174, 176, 211, 217
compare surplus extraction
prostitution, 177
protest, 70, 72–3, 131, 177, 180, 191,
205
public
goods, see goods theory;
microfinance, public goods;
private-public distinction;
watsan microfinance
service, 22, 52, 123, 127, 130; see
also municipal enterprises
Rahman, Aminur, 12, 17, 83, 96, 102
Rai, Vineet, 179, 186
Rajan, Raghuram, 26, 61, 120
randomized controlled trials (RCTs),
12–13, 103
Rankin, Katharine, 16, 17, 93, 121,
122
rationality of clients, 88, 91, 109, 155,
157
recognition (of benefits from access),
134–6, 143, 149, 152, 155–6, 158,
204
regulation of microfinance, 19, 53, 77,
92, 197, 204, 213
in India, 167, 169–70, 171, 176–8,
180, 183–4, 187, 188, 192
Régulation theory, 21–2
Reis, Nadine, 141, 142–6, 156
rentiers, 21, 22–3, 26, 106, 199
repayment rates, 48, 64, 90, 103, 174,
180–2
research question, statement of, 2
Reserve Bank of India (RBI), 164, 169,
180, 183, 184
RESULTS, 61
reverse osmosis (RO) plants, 147–9
Rhyne, Elizabeth, 10, 55, 63, 70, 71,
98
rivers, 138, 139, 142, 145, 147, 166
rogue MFI allegations, 71, 76, 167,
179, 185
rolling over of loans, 161, 162, 176,
202
see also juggling; overindebtedness
Roodman, David, 2, 6, 14, 38, 44, 98
Rosenberg, Richard, 61, 116
rotating credit societies, 43
Roy, Ananya, 4, 5, 59, 198
Rozas, Daniel, 172–3, 175, 192
Samuelson, Paul, 137
sanitation, see watsan microfinance
savings, see microsavings
Schumpeter, Joseph, 16, 99
securitization, 60, 66, 111, 168
Self-Employed Women’s Association
(SEWA), 9, 47, 53, 163, 199
Self-Help Groups, 163–5, 167, 174,
177, 179, 182, 188, 190
and watsan microfinance, 146,
148–9, 150, 153, 154, 218, 220,
224
self-regulation, 75, 167, 173
see also corporate governance; social
performance management
Sen, Amartya, 79
Senegal, 220
shadow state, 4, 49
share investment, see equity
investment in microfinance
share issue, see initial public offer
SHARE Microfin, 176, 177
Simmel, Georg, 29, 40, 78, 80, 104,
107, 119
Sinclair, Hugh, 33, 196, 210
SKS Microfinance, 68, 106, 161,
168–9, 170, 171, 174–6, 178–80,
183, 185, 186, 192
mutual benefit trusts (MBTs), 175–6
small and medium-sized enterprises
(SMEs), 15, 94, 126, 213
Smith, Adam, 28, 49, 107, 196, 202
social
business, 7, 61, 76, 199
capital, 101–2, 118, 121–2
meaning of money, see money
performance management, 62–3,
134, 197; see also self-regulation
structures of accumulation (SSA)
theory, 21–2
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Society for the Elimination of Rural
Poverty (SERP), 178–9
solidarity groups, see borrower groups
Soros, George, 2, 175
South Africa, 62, 91, 219
Spandana Sphoorty, 176, 177
speculative finance (Minsky), 161–2,
188
Sriram, M.S., 72, 173, 186
state-led lending, 46–7, 50, 55, 73,
163, 190
stock market, 24, 31, 67, 96, 161, 174
see also equity investment in
microfinance; initial public
offer
Stoll, David, 193–4, 198
storytelling, 81–2, 87, 89
see also narratives
structural adjustment, 3, 54–5, 70, 76,
92, 125, 129–30, 164
see also Washington Consensus;
neoliberalism
subprime, 4, 91, 120, 160, 193
subsidization of microfinance, 56–8,
60, 68, 85–6, 112–14, 122, 126,
127, 141–2, 159
subsistence, 115, 200
success stories, see client stories
suicides of microfinance clients, 71,
160, 161, 167, 172, 174, 176–80,
192
see also life insurance; farmer
suicides
surplus extraction, 6, 25, 104–8, 114,
115–18, 199, 203, 214–18
see also capital accumulation
sustainability, 6, 11, 34–5, 56, 96, 98,
131, 134, 174, 188
of microfinance, see profitability of
microfinance
of resource usage, 122, 127, 144,
155, 207
Swift, Jonathan, 44
Telugu Desam Party (TDP), 164, 180
temporal dimension of microfinance,
32, 85, 87, 99–100, 107–9, 110–11
temptation goods, 13, 103, 200
see also impact assessments;
randomised controlled trials
Thailand, 219
Thatcher, Margaret, 90, 129, 210
time, see temporal dimension of
microfinance
Togo, 223
transformation of microfinance
institutions, see
commercialization of
microfinance; Grameen Bank
transnationalism, 20–1, 39, 62, 127,
131, 199, 209
Trident Microfinance, 181
Tamil Nadu, 184, 219, 224
Taylor, Marcus, 99, 146, 160, 164–5,
166, 187, 188
Telangana, 146
Telenor, 65
Wall Street Journal, 61, 65, 172, 184
Washington Consensus, 5, 41, 54, 59
see also structural adjustment
Washington, DC, 59, 61, 62
waste land, 153, 166
UNESCO, 62
United Nations Year of Microcredit, 63
United States Agency for International
Development (USAID), 9, 54, 56,
57, 124, 127, 134, 221
Unitus, 175
urbanization, 128, 129, 142, 153–5
USA, 24, 31, 54, 120, 139, 193, 207
usury, 73, 109, 177, 192
see also moneylenders
Velugu, see Self-Help Groups
ventilation-improved pit (VIP)
latrines, 144, 221, 222
Victims of Microcredit, 72
see also protest
Victorian era, 30, 86, 88, 108, 128–9,
209
Vietnam, 141–6, 154–7, 201
violence, 72, 177–8, 185, 191
domestic, 12
see also protest
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water
bodies (natural), see aquifers;
groundwater; rivers
paradigms of governance, 131–3
politics of, 127–33
and sanitation, see watsan
microfinance
tariffs, 70, 125, 129; see also cost
recovery
watsan
definition of, 128
health hazards related to, 128, 147,
153
watsan microfinance, 125–7, 133–59,
201, 204, 209, 218–24
case studies, 142–54
overview of projects, 126–7, 218–24
pitfalls, 157–8
supply-side problems, 126, 134
Weber, Heloise, 2, 3, 4, 55, 91–3, 198,
212
Weber, Max, 28, 29, 40, 195
Wichterich, Christa, 7, 161, 168
win-win, 7, 121, 127, 133–6, 140, 155,
157, 158–9
Wolff, Henry W., 45
women, 47, 48, 49, 135, 141, 148,
153–4, 157, 211
as managers of loans, 16–17
and microfinance, 1–2, 4, 7, 10,
12–13, 16–17, 53, 63, 73, 82–4,
95–6, 99, 166, 175
positional vulnerability of, 12, 83,
148
see also empowerment; feminism;
protest; Self-Employed
Women’s Association; Self-Help
Groups
Women In Development, 50–1, 76
working poor, 51, 85–6
World Bank, 4, 6, 8, 9, 11, 50, 54–60,
62, 73, 76, 92, 121, 122, 126,
163–5, 173, 183, 190, 199
and financial inclusion, 18–19, 206
water sector policy, 130–1, 152
see also Consultative Group to
Assist the Poor; structural
adjustment; Washington
Consensus
write-offs, see loan losses
Yapa, Lakshman, 79–80, 104, 119
Year of Microcredit, see United
Nations Year of Microcredit
yield, 115–17, 214–18
Young, Stephen, 55, 93–6, 99, 164, 166
Yunus, Muhammad, 6, 10, 38, 42, 44,
49, 52–3, 61, 64–5, 92, 211
views on microfinance, 2, 62, 84,
90, 185, 198
views on other topics, 27, 91, 119,
122
Zelizer, Viviana, 30, 86
Zimbabwe, 219
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