Title:
Microsavings Could Mean Big Gains for the World's
Poor
Description: This is
a VOA Special English Economics Report.
See text below
Text:
When it comes to savings, no amount is too small.
Microsaving is a growing part of the international
movement of microfinance. The aim is to bring
financial services to poor people. Modern
microfinance started with Nobel Prize-winning
economist Muhammad Yunus in Bangladesh. In the
nineteen seventies, he started small loan programs
that would become the Grameen Bank. Currently,
microcredit providers are in over one hundred
countries. Now, microfinance institutions are
starting to offer other services, including savings
plans. Recently, the non-profit group Small
Enterprise Education and Promotion held a conference
in Washington. SEEP works with over one hundred
twenty groups around the world in efforts to cut
poverty. It does this by supporting small
businesses. The goal is help microfinance industry
experts share ideas. One idea is called Financial
Access at Birth, or FAB. It is designed to start
each person with a financial citizenship at birth
through a savings account connected to a bank
deposit. Rosita Najmi is FAB's program director. She
says FAB starts with financial inclusion, but
creates other possibilities for inclusion across
other sectors of health or education. Mobile or
wireless technology will be important to many
microfinance services. One meeting at the SEEP
conference examined a mobile phone application for
saving money. Debbie Dean of the Grameen Foundation
says these efforts can also be extended to other
financial services. They could include a combination
of savings programs and money transfer programs. She
says this could provide the most flexibility and
convenience for savers. But offering savings,
payments and other services requires more training
and controls. Rashid Bajwa leads Pakistan's largest
microfinance organization. He says more training is
needed. And, he says, microfinance institutions will
need specialized people when they start offering
savings programs. Small savings deposits add up. And
interest over time makes them grow. This can have a
surprising effect for savers and societies. Rashid
Bajwa puts it this way. He says the amount of money
that poor people have is imaginable.For VOA Special
English, I'm Carolyn Presutti.
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Hi. I
personally reviewed this video and found it appropriate for
the news section of English Global Group. This
is a Voice of America video which covers an interesting
topic in Special English. I would appreciate some feedback from both
students and teachers about this video. You can comment in
the window below using any of a number of different services
including Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail.
