Bangladesh bank offers loans to US poor (you just can't make this stuff up!)

Financial Times ^ | February 15 2008 | Daniel Pimlott

[2banana]

Bangladesh bank offers loans to US poor By Daniel Pimlott in New York

Published: February 15 2008

Bangladesh’s Grameen Bank has made its first loans in New York in an attempt to bring its pioneering microfinance techniques to the tens of millions of people in the world’s richest country who have no bank account.

The bank’s entry into the US, its first in a developed market, comes as mainstream banks’ credibility has been hit by the mortgage meltdown and many people are turning to fringe financial institutions offering loans at exorbitant interest rates.

[2banana]

How low can we go?

[the invisib1e hand]

interesting. hey, if they bank won't touch you because you're not made in its image (or can't because it's broke), let the market step up and show you what it can do.

[2banana]

Actually - the more I think about it - better the poor go to Grameen than to one of those payday loan stores.

[kingattax]

[AmericaUnited]

These people just have no clue at how conniving “the richest poor people in the world” can be.

Katie bar the door and secure tha bank account...

[Rb ver. 2.0]

[Rb ver. 2.0]

Isn’t that pretty much the structure of the American dating culture?

[PC99]

Strange, because being “poor” in America (except for the old, sick, and disabled) generally refers to people who own cars, televisions, are overweight, and have access to innumerable government programs and education - a stark contrast to the “poor” in the Third World.

[GOPJ]

How low can we go?

Hope we don't have to find out - who knows if they'll be willing to prop up our worthless dollars...

[Shanty Shaker]

I think the fact that the bank is looking for a market where people actually repay their loans?

[Wally_Kalbacken]

Yeah - wait till they find out what the bad rate is on their portfolios in Atlanta, Detroit, New Orleans, Memphis...

[Onelifetogive]

I think the fact that the bank is looking for a market where people actually repay their loans?

It will not take them long to cross "the American poor" off their list. It is not easy being poor in America...it takes concerted effort.

[piasa]

This bank is directed by Mohammad Yusuf... a Clinton Foundation donor...Telecom guy... has many businesses. Appears in the Clinton email scandal; Clinton’s allegedly threatened Bangladeshi government to protect him...