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

by Muhammad Yunus

Creating Five Star branches really caught their imagination. Grameen Bank provides color-coded stars to branches for 100 percent achievement of a specific task. Five stars indicate a branch has reached the highest level of performance. At the end of 2002, branches showed the followed results: • 696 branches, out of the total of 1,178 branches, received green stars for maintaining a 100 percent repayment record. • 437 branches received blue stars for earning a profit. (Grameen Bank as a whole earns a profit because of the revenue it generates from the interest payments made by the branches on the funds borrowed from the head office.) • 213 branches earned violet stars by generating a surplus of deposits over the loans outstanding in those branches. These branches not only carry out their business with their own funds, but also contribute their surpluses to meet the fund requirement of deficit branches. • 61 branches have applied for brown stars for ensuring an education for 100 percent of the children of their Grameen families. After the completion of the verification process, their stars will be confirmed. • 21 branches applied for red stars, indicating that they have succeeded in taking 100 percent of their borrowers’ families over the poverty line. The star will be confirmed only after the verification procedure is completed. • 772 branches (i.e., two-thirds of all branches) received a total of 1,346 stars, an average of 1.74 stars per branch. Each month branches are com...