The strategy gained prominence last year when Muhammad Yunus, a Bangladeshi economist and banker who pioneered the global microfinance movement, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Grameen Bank, which Yunus founded in Dhaka, Bangladesh, in the mid 1970s, offers lines of credit as low as $9 for beggars to buy bread, candy, toys and other goods to sell on the street. It has also broken social taboos by offering small-business loans to women in Muslim countries to buy cell phones, sewing machines, and weaving materials. Today, the bank provides loans to nearly 7 million people — 97 percent of whom are women — with some 2,226 local branches throughout the country. It claims a 98 percent repayment rate.
“By defining ‘entrepreneur’ in a broader way we can change the character of capitalism radically, and solve many of the unresolved social and economic problems within the scope of the free market,” Yunus said at his Nobel Prize acceptance speech in December.