The Essential Microfinance

"This book is an exhaustive handbook on microfinance covering more than 600 concepts and ideas .Since poverty alleviation remains a top agenda for development programs and microfinance has proved the most effective approach for combating it, there was a growing demand among students, academics, journalists, bankers and general readers for a handy companion on microfinance.

The text examines what has become a vast global industry employing hundreds of thousands of people and attracting the attention of large numbers of governments, banks, aid agencies, non-governmental organizations and consultancy firms. In this book the authors try to help students, who are relatively new to microfinance, practitioners looking for an entry point into the vast academic literature, and policy makers to become acquainted with the main ideas and debates about microfinance. The main objective of the book is to equip the reader with sound understanding of the various concepts in microfinance and their relevance to contemporary financial programmes so that the user is in a position to process business proposals in microfinance."

"A RAMESH KUMAR

A Ramesh Kumar is one of India’s well known bankers with 33 years of experience in Banking across India and internationally with State Bank of India, the largest bank in India. An International Banker by training, he was in-charge of the Foreign Currency corpus of the Bank and Correspondent Relations with Foreign Banks. He was also the head of all International Offices and Subsidiaries of the Bank. As Chief General Manager he headed the Banks operations in Mumbai Circle. He was the moving spirit behind the emergence of a microfinance wave in Central India, particularly Maharashtra. Currently he is Managing Director of Swarna Pragati Housing Microfinance Pvt Ltd, a Housing Finance Company, pioneering an innovative and revolutionary approach to Rural Housing microfinance for the people at the Bottom of the Pyramid. He has been a staunch advocate of the Triple Bottom Line since his early career when the concept no longer existed in corporate lexicon. Kumar is also an Ashoka Fellow

MOIN QAZI

Moin Qazi has spent a major part of his three decade career in SBI in microfinance as a grassroots field officer, program manager, senior executive, policy maker and professional researcher. He holds a doctorate in Economics and English Literature. He has written extensively on microfinance in well known national and international journals on development finance and has been associated with A Ramesh Kumar in his microfinance initiatives ."