Microfinance: A comparative Study Of Bangladesh and India

Abstract

Microfinance is being practiced as a tool to attack poverty the world over. The term "Microfinance" can be defined as "provision of thrift, credit and other financial services and products of very small amounts to the poor in rural, semi-urban or urban areas, for enabling them to raise their income levels and improve living standards". The aim of the paper is to understand whether the institutions are serving their purpose of existence or are these rather becoming profit-making centers. This paper conducts a comparative study between India and Bangladesh, in terms of loan lent by institutes to the customers, clientele, financial sustainability of MFI's Institutions, in order to understand how MFI's in India are performing as against those MFI's in Bangladesh as it is considered to be the originator of Microfinance. The paper discovers that no doubt Indian MFI's are more profitable and operating more efficient than those in Bangladesh.