Nobel laureate calls for more bank lending to poor

By Park Bo-ram
SEOUL, June 18 (Yonhap) -- Commercial banks need to increase lending to the
underprivileged as part of efforts to bring them out of poverty, a Nobel Peace
Prize winner said Thursday.

"People simply inherited poverty because of social structure," said Muhammad
Yunus in a lecture at Ewha Womans University in Seoul. "Banks should thus lend
more money to the poor to help them overcome poverty."
Yunus won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for pioneering micro-credit. In 1983, Yunus
established the Grameen Bank, the co-awardee of the prize, to provide much-needed
small loans to impoverished women business owners.
Yunus pointed out that the effects of the economic bubble bursting have rippled
through commercial banks, while his micro-loan bank has stayed intact despite the
global turmoil.
Yunus said he is making sure the money goes to female small business owners and
schooling for children to help them out of destitution.
Started with only US$27.00 of seed money out of Yunus' own pocket, the Grameen
Bank currently lends over $1 billion every year to 8 million borrowers, he said.
With 47 percent of its loans going to women, the lender has a repayment rate of
98-99 percent, he added.
pbr@yna.co.kr
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