Microfinance has grown from the obscure efforts of a few philanthropic institutions into a global industry that reaches 150–200 million clients through the branches of thousands of institutions. Microfinance has matured from exclusively funding loans to providing savings, insurance, healthcare, and education. Yet many people still think of it narrowly as microcredit. Understanding remains thin of what the industry does, how it functions and why.

Introduction to Microfinance provides a non-technical introduction to the broad array of inclusive financial and non-financial services for the world's poor. It explores the financial lives of those families, and the microfinance institutions and rapidly growing industry that serve them. Written in close collaboration with college students for college students, under the auspices of one of the US's leading undergraduate programs in microfinance, it is the first-ever introductory college textbook about microfinance.

What is microfinance? What are its methods and why? Does it work? What are its prospects and challenges? Why is it controversial? This book tackles these questions and more.

Readership: Undergraduates and graduates interested in microfinance and those who are keen to know more about microfinance, development, and/or social investing.

About the Author

Todd A Watkins, PhD, is Professor of Economics and Executive Director of the Martindale Center for the Study of Private Enterprise at Lehigh University. Author of more than 75 related publications, his research and teaching focus on the intersection of microfinance, economic development, innovation, entrepreneurship, and public policy. Co-editor of the book Moving Beyond Storytelling: Emerging Research in Microfinance, Dr Watkins founded and directs Lehigh's Microfinance Program, and was a founding member of the advisory Faculty Council for Accion International's Center for Financial Inclusion, which seeks to promote innovation and growth of commercial microfinance worldwide. He serves as a Board Member and past President of the Rising Tide Community Loan Fund, which targets the business development credit needs of low-to-moderate-income communities in eastern Pennsylvania, USA. He's won multiple teaching awards at all three institutions where he's taught. Watkins earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Optics from the University of Rochester and his PhD and Master in Public Policy from Harvard University.

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