Grameen Bank

Grameen Bank was a microcredit bank in Bangladesh, annually lending hundreds of millions of dollars to its millions of poor entrepreneurs. The bank’s managing director, Muhammad Yunus, was faced with tremendous challenges brought about by the political upheavals and natural disasters common in this economically developing country. Floods, elections, and party-backed unions have upset the natural flow of Grameen’s no-collateral lending process and he must decide how to extend needed aid without undermining the borrowers’ perception that Grameen is a bank, not an aid institution. The case covers the history of the bank from 1975 to 1998, with a concentration on events in the mid nineties.