Bangladeshi Nobel Laureate and the founder of Grameen Bank Mohd Yunus today said conventional banks function in an 'absurd' way.
"In the conventional banking system if you don't have anything they don't give you anything. Banks are supposed to lend money to poor people, but in their way of things they lend money to people who have lots of money.
It should be otherwise, you should lend money to people who don't have money," Yunus said at a programme in IIM Calcutta.
"That is absurd proposition the way banks function globally. Poor people are not credit worthy that is what they think. Should you classify people who is credit worthy, who is not? People should be deciding and that is what Grameen Bank has been doing all these years," he said.
In 2006, Yunus and the Grameen Bank were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 "for their efforts through micro credit to create economic and social development from below".
"We have 20 branches in US - in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Houston, Indianapolis and many other places. We have nearly 100,000 borrowers in US and all of them are women," he said.
The payment rate by the members in Grameen Bank in US over 8 years had never fallen below 99 per cent, Yunus said.
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