Microfinance has existed in different forms for centuries. However, it has only really started to be structured in the last thirty years or so.
It already existed three thousand years ago with the Hebrews, the only people whose religious laws allowed them to charge interest for lending money. It re-appeared much later, in Europe in the 16th century, when the Church began to authorise interest-bearing loans. Pawnbroking in the form of mutual funds gradually became a widespread activity.
In the 19th century, savings banks and savings and credit cooperatives for the poorest segments of the population began to appear.In Africa, traditional tontine systems enabled members to pool their savings.
In 1978, two independent and simultaneous initiatives marked the birth of a new sector that allowed the very poor to finance their entrepreneurial activities without requiring them to secure a loan.In Bangladesh, Muhammad Yunus, a young professor of rural economy at the University of Chittagong, met 42 women who were forced to borrow money from usurers at a weekly interest rate of 10% to buy the straw they needed to re-seat chairs. The women had been unable to find a bank willing to grant them a loan, so Yunus took it upon himself to lend them the equivalent of the $26 they needed.
At precisely the same time, on the other side of the world, Joseph Blatchford, an American tennis player, founded ACCION, a NGO aiming to help the poor to help themselves; he started by installing electricity, building schools and community centres, then decided to back local microenterpreneurs and the programmes that offered them support services.
KEY BENCHMARKS
| 1978 | Founding of Accion |
| 1983 | Founding of the Grameen Bank |
| 1997 | 1st International Microcredit Campaign |
| 1998 | Decision by the U.N. General Assembly to declare 2005 an International Year of Microcredit |
| 1998 | Founding of PlaNet Finance |
| 2000 | Declaration by the UN of its Millennium Development Goals:- Eradicate extreme povery and hunger - Achieve universal primary education - Promote gender equality and empower women - Reduce child mortality -Improve maternal health -Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases - Ensure environmental sustainability - Develop a global partnership for development. |
| 2003 | Member states approve UN programme to promote sustainable access to microfinance |
| 2004 | G8 Declaration on expanding access to Microfinance for Entrepreneurs |
| 2005 | International Year of Microcredit |
| 2005 | Founding of Planet Rating and MicroCred, two companies affiliated with PlaNet Finance |
| 2006 | Prix Nobel de la Paix attribué au Professeur Muhammad Yunus, fondateur de la Grameen Bank |
| 2007 | Founding of PlaNet Guarantee and FinanCités, two companies affiliated with PlaNet Finance |