ABSTRACT
Micro-finance for both income-generation and housing construction has received increased attention from development practitioners, governments and official banking systems since the 1970s. Internationally recognized models of micro-finance lending include the communal banking system of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh with over US$ 1.5 billion in loans and a 97 per cent repayment rate, as well as the ACCION micro-finance network which includes BancoSol, a commercially successful bank for low-income men and women in Bolivia (Bornstein 1996).
