Could microfinancing save our city?

Microfinancing is the provision of financial services to low-income clients, including consumers and the self-employed, who traditionally lack access to banking and related services.

It is, in essence, the supply of loans, savings, and other basic financial services to the underpriveleged.

More broadly, it is a movement whose object is a world in which as many poor and near-poor households as possible have permanent access to an appropriate range of high quality financial services, including not just credit but also savings, insurance, and fund transfers. Those who promote microfinance generally believe that such access will help poor people out of poverty.