The Economist Free Exchange blog features CGD research fellow David Roodman's blog post on the Grameen Bank.
From the article:
"DAVID ROODMAN, a fellow at the Centre for Global Development, blogs about microfinance here (he's writing a book on it). I found this post (and a couple of follow-ups) very interesting indeed. Mr Roodman has crunched the numbers on late payments, delinquent borrowers, and such, using the data from the Grameen Bank, which (as he points out) very helpfully (and somewhat unusually for the industry) posts them on its website. Stellar repayment rates—the much-touted figure is 98%—are an important ingredient in making microfinance work. Mr Roodman shows that Grameen's own data show several negative developments over the last year or so. For instance, the percentage of amounts actually repaid has fallen from being consistently around or above 98% to a little over 96.5%."