ABSTRACT
The significance of microfinance has risen substantially over the past 20 years. As an increasingly vital element of international development aid programmes, microfinance has been readily accepted and successfully implemented by groups such as ACCION in the USA, BancoSol in Bolivia and the Association for Social Advancement (ASA) as well as by the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) in Bangladesh and Bank Rakyat Indonesia (BRI) in Indonesia (ASA, 1997; Navajas et al., 2000; Robinson, 2001).
