Banker to the Poor: Micro-lending and the Battle Against World Poverty

by Muhammad Yunus

Anyone younger than twenty-eight with a master’s degree and at leastaBaverage in all final examinations is eligible to apply for a job as one of our bank managers. We advertise in the national newspapers and receive a large number of applications. Half of these applicants would make first-class bank managers for Grameen. But since our training facilities are limited, we screen the candidates through interviews to pick only a limited number. Those we select are asked to report to our training institute. Here they receive a two-day briefing, and then we send them off to various branches, where they remain in training for most of the following six months. Before they go, the institute staff tells them, “Observe everything carefully. When your training is over, your task will be to create a Grameen branch of your own that will be better in every respect than the one in which you spent your first six months.”