Flickr, TW Collins
As loyal readers of this blog know, I’ve been watching and reporting on the increasing turmoil in the Indian microfinance industry for a while now.
How this flap in India plays out could have profound implications for a number of Seattle organizations and many others elsewhere that promote microfinance as a tool for reducing global poverty.
Today, the New York Times reports that “India Microcredit Faces Collapse from Defaults” and says:
India’s rapidly growing private microcredit industry faces imminent collapse as almost all borrowers in one of India’s largest states have stopped repaying their loans, egged on by politicians who accuse the industry of earning outsize profits on the backs of the poor.
This approach reminded me of the early days reporting on America’s sub-prime loan crisis. Continue reading