This paper discusses the so-called commercial approach to microfinance under economic and ethical aspects. It first … shows how microfinance has developed from a purely welfare-oriented activity to a commercially relevant line of banking … microfinance in the course of the last decade. As the author argues, this commercial approach is the only sound approach to adopt …

apply to microfinance institutions (MFIs) and may help explaining the above-mentioned link. Unlike previous work analyzing … differences observed across MFIs. Our study unveils that big banking principles can be extended to the microfinance sector. Indeed …