30 Facts About Grameen Bank

Grameen Bank is a microfinance organisation and community development bank founded in Bangladesh.

Grameen Bank originated in 1976, in the work of Professor Muhammad Yunus at University of Chittagong, who launched a research project to study how to design a credit delivery system to provide banking services to the rural poor.

In October 1983 the Grameen Bank was authorised by national legislation to operate as an independent bank.

Grameen Bank began to expand microcredit as a research project together with the Rural Economics Project at Bangladesh's University of Chittagong to test his method for providing credit and banking services to the rural poor.

In 2011, the Bangladesh Government forced Yunus to resign from Grameen Bank, saying that at age 72, he was years beyond the legal limit for the position.

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In 2013, Bangladesh parliament passed 'Grameen Bank Act' which replaces the Grameen Bank Ordinance, 1983, authorising the government to make rules for any aspect of the running of the bank.

Grameen Bank is founded on the principle that loans are better than charity to interrupt poverty: they offer people the opportunity to take initiatives in business or agriculture, which provide earnings and enable them to pay off the debt.

Grameen Bank is founded on the belief that people have endless potential, and unleashing their creativity and initiative helps them end poverty.

Grameen Bank has offered credit to classes of people formerly underserved: the poor, women, illiterate, and unemployed people.

Grameen Bank's objective has been to promote financial independence among the poor.

Since 1995, Grameen Bank has funded 90 percent of its loans with interest income and deposits collected, aligning the interests of its new borrowers and depositor-shareholders.

Grameen Bank is best known for its system of solidarity lending.

Since the Grameen Bank embraced the Sixteen Decisions, almost all Grameen borrowers have their school-age children enrolled in regular classes.

Grameen Bank says that more than half of its borrowers in Bangladesh have risen out of acute poverty thanks to their loan, as measured by such standards as having all children of school age in school, all household members eating three meals a day, a sanitary toilet, a rainproof house, clean drinking water, and the ability to repay a 300 taka-a-week loan.

In 2003, Grameen Bank started a new program, different from its traditional group-based lending, exclusively targeted to the beggars in Bangladesh.

In 1984, Grameen applied to the Central Bank for help setting up a housing loan program for its borrowers.

Grameen Bank changed tactics and applied a third time, this time to make "factory loans", the explanation being that borrowers worked from home, so the home was a factory that made it possible for borrowers to earn income.

That is where we find that what will become Grameen bank, is founded upon one man's heart for those that society and big corporations could or would not help.

Grameen Bank encourages its members to create a positive impact by becoming actively involved in the politics of their country.

The work of the Grameen Bank staff initiated a sharp increase in political activity which continued into the 1992,1996, and 1997 elections.

Grameen Bank stressed that he has observed that Grameen's borrowers attain a sense of confidence and self-sufficiency when they pay back their loans from Grameen bank.

Grameen Bank is owned by the borrowers of the bank, most of whom are poor women.

From modest beginnings three decades ago, Yunus has, first and foremost through Grameen Bank, developed micro-credit into an ever more important instrument in the struggle against poverty.

Grameen Bank has been a source of ideas and models for the many institutions in the field of micro-credit that have sprung up around the world.

Grameen Bank is the only business corporation to have won a Nobel Prize.

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Grameen Bank has grown into over two dozen enterprises of the Grameen Family of Enterprises.

Grameen Bank Foundation was developed to share the Grameen Bank philosophy and expand the benefits of microfinance for the world's poorest people.

From 2005, Grameen Bank worked on Mifos X, an open source technology framework for core banking solutions.

Since 2011, Grameen Bank released this technology under the stewardship of Mifos Initiative, a US Non Profit organisation.

Researchers have noted instances when microloans from the Grameen Bank were linked to exploitation and pressures on poor families to sell their belongings, leading in extreme cases to humiliation and ultimately suicides.