Sustainable banking with the poor

This paper serves as an introduction to the collection of selected papers from the Conference on ‘Finance Against Poverty’, held at Reading, England, March 1995, sponsored by the University of Reading, the University of Manchester, the UK Overseas Development Administration, the Norwegian International Development Authority, and the World Bank. The papers in this collection represent only a small fraction of the more than 45 papers presented by scholars, practitioners and donor agencies at the Conference. They have been selected in an effort to give a sense of the richness and variety of the conference deliberations—and as expressing some of the key themes and concerns which emerged. In this introduction—as at the conference—the importance of building sustainable financial systems for poor men and women is emphasized. The main themes point to recognizing the heterogeneity of the poor and its implications for program and institutional design, evaluating the limitations imposed by the policy and regulatory environment, and solving the challenges posed by institution building.