International | Finance for the poor

Your inflexible friend

Microlending is booming once again. If it is to help people out of poverty, though, it needs to work much better

|LUCKNOW

ON A shelf in Buland Iqbal’s tiny roadside shop, cassette tapes are slowly turning pale in the sun. Nobody wants them these days, even in a dusty suburb in one of India’s poorest states. So Mr Iqbal has branched out. First he moved into renting DVDs, then, more boldly, into pay-television. A loan of 31,000 rupees ($465) from Sonata, a microfinance firm, helped him acquire a few satellite dishes and decoder boxes. It seems like a clear-cut success for microlending. In fact, Mr Iqbal’s loan illustrates why microlending does not work all that well, and how it needs to change.

This article appeared in the International section of the print edition under the headline “Your inflexible friend”

The road to Brexit

From the October 8th 2016 edition

Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents

Explore the edition

Discover more

Illustration of a person leaning on a table with a red tie and orange-toned hands. In front are small American and Chinese flags on a table.

“Tariffers” v “traders”: the new contest for Donald Trump’s ear

Eye-witnesses to the drama of the first Trump presidency brace for the sequel

Special Investigation Police, conducting a citywide anti-gang operation, raid a house in the Barrio Abajo district where gang members are believed to be residing

The world is losing the fight against international gangs

Globalisation and technological progress are leading to a boom in organised crime


COP29 UNFCCC Climate Conference In Baku

Half a loaf, at best, from the climate talks

This year’s negotiations made very modest progress


Is your master’s degree useless?

New data show a shockingly high proportion of courses are a waste of money

The perils of appeasing a warlike Russia

Finland’s cold-war past offers urgent lessons for Ukraine’s future

The danger zone between two presidents

The world’s bad actors will relish any power vacuum