Banks have been designed to make the rich richer and have no option for poor to get benefit from it, said Professor Muhammad Yunus, the man who laid the foundation of the world famous 'Grameen Bank' and is still working as its Managing Director. The poor are not by nature poor but it is the system and the policies which do not provide them enough space to grow, he said. He was speaking at a talk "We can create a poverty-free South Asia", organised by the Oxford University Press (OUP) at a local hotel here on Saturday.
He said the poor people are like 'Bonsai plant' which is grown in a bottle but is a replica of jungle. The poor people are not provided with enough space to grow, he added.
"It is easy to cut size and reject the abilities of others, but every one has ability to work and make his or her life better," said Yunus, who has 30 years experiences of living with the poor, knowing their problems and finding their solutions.
He said that Grameen Bank, which was born in 1983, has over 4 million borrowers who are also the stakeholders of the Grameen Bank. He said the recovery rate is 99 percent, and 96 percent borrowers are women.
"Half of the Grameen family has come out from poverty and the remaining part would also succeed to get rid of poverty," he said.
Yunus told the story in a perfect style of telling story and received wide appreciation, and the audience applauded his achievement.
He said that the money which goes to a family through a woman brings more benefit and success which is the reason that Grameen Bank stresses on giving loans to women.
He said the Grameen Bank lends half a billion dollars each year and this money for lending comes from savings. The average lending is 200 US dollars. For lending of one dollar, about 77 cents come as savings, he said.
He said at first saving was just 25 paisa and gradually improved to one Taka and now only 5 Taka. He said this 5 Taka saving is the biggest power for Grameen Bank.
The surprising result of decline in population of Bangladesh was the result of empowerment of women who can decide what kind of family she wants to keep, he said. The professor said that entry of mobile phone services brought another fortune for Bangladeshi women, though the government earlier rejected his idea to give the Grameen Bank licence for mobile services.
Only half a million land telephone are available in main cities of Bangladesh where the villages have no access to get connected.
"Now 80,000 telephone-lady are in the villages of Bangladesh who possess mobile telephone and earn through its services. Now the Bangladeshi villages are connected world-wide," he said. All these women are illiterate but they know which button should be pushed to connect the telephone, he said.
He said: "We have no legal instruments. We decided not to go to Police, Court or head of a villager for recovery, and we never went." The Bank has provided loans for 600,000 houses in the country.
Yunus, who is rich in ideas, has done another unique thing by focusing beggars and making them clients of Grameen Bank. Now 25,000 beggars are selling many common things with loans from the Bank while they are allowed to continue their begging. Yunus said half of these beggars would leave beggary by the end of next year.
"Even a beggar can take loan. No bank in the world could accept this," he said.
Banks provide loans only when they find "credit-worthiness" of the client. "I ask: are these banks people worthy?" Professor Yunus, who was declared as the living legend by former Governor of Sindh Kamal Azfar, said.
He said human beings were not sent on planet to search for food only. This is the job of animals. Humans should do much bigger things. "But still half of the world population is poor and just searching for foods," said the Professor who is looking for Bangladesh to come out from dire poverty.
Governor State Bank, Dr Ishrat Husain briefly expressed his views over Grameen Bank and praised the efforts of Professor Yunus.
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