Microfinance institutions (MFIs) have largely focused on urban markets, leaving the rural poor underserved. The high costs of serving rural markets has often been identified as the key impediment to serving these markets, resulting in saturation and heavy competition in urban markets while poor...

Trust is the basis of many aspects of microfinance operations and is a critical determinant of microfinance success. Trust governs interactions within borrowing groups, between clients and loan officers and between clients and institutions. To effectively address the many strategic challenges...

The microfinance industry seeks to alleviate poverty by providing business loans and related financial services to clients who are too small to be served profitably through the formal financial sector. Microbusiness lending is considered to be among the most powerful tools available for...