During the previous year, SML utilized an unconventional financial instrument to mobilise resources, which included the securitisation of portfolio with ICICI Bank and a partnership arrangement where SML disburses loans on behalf of ICICI Bank. SML increased its authorised capital from Rs.150 million (US$3.3m) to Rs.500 million (US$11.1m) and as on date has a paid up capital of Rs.122.7 million (US$2.7m) in the form of preference and equity capital. Mr. Vinod Khosla, a leading venture capitalist and co-founder of Sun Microsystems and partner at Kleiner, Perkins, Caulfield and Byers, in U.S.A. has given his consent to invest Rs.90 million (US$2.0m) equity in SML. On the debt front, Indian Overseas Bank, a public sector bank has invested Rs.50 million (US$1.1m) in the form of loan funds.

Recognizing that MFIs can be sustainable, profitable and efficient, while still reaching the poorest with dependable microcredit, a 10% dividend has been declared in the microfinance sector in India.

By the year 2009, SML plans to reach out to 1 million poor clients with a loan portfolio of Rs.5.35 billion (US$119.8m).

Report from SHARE

This was the first Grameen Dialogue with simultaneous translation in another language, Arabic. Equipments were installed, professional English-Arabic-English interpreters were brought in from Morocco. They did an excellent job at keeping the discussion moving without anyone realising that people were talking in languages, which were not understandable to each other.

The 48th International Dialogue Programme was held on May 30-June 9, 2004, in Dhaka, jointly organized by Grameen Trust, Grameen Bank and Grameen Foundation USA.

A total of 48 participants from 7 countries i.e. Jordan, Egypt, Morocco, Lebanon, Tunisia, Yemen and U.S.A, attended the dialogue. They included potential replicators, non-government organisation representatives, microcredit practitioners and persons wishing to gain a deeper understanding of microcredit as well as other individuals interested in establishing poverty alleviation programs, especially microcredit institutions that replicate the Grameen Bank approach to poverty reduction.

After the introductory briefings, the participants spent most of their time observing Grameen Bank operations in the field. They also visited a number of urban replicators as well as Grameen branches, where they observed first hand the essential features of Grameen such as the centre meetings, loan supervision, group formation, accounting and management information systems. After their field visits, the participants returned to the head office, where they engaged in two days of intensive discussions with Grameen Bank management on issues arising from their field visits.

As the final step in the dialogue process, participants prepared action plans, outlining what would be their follow up activities after their return to their respective countries. These included proposals for setting up microcredit pilot projects, restructuring existing microfinance institutions as well as other measures to facilitate implementation of Grameen Bank replication.

Professor Yunus, the founder and managing director of Grameen Bank, is scheduled to visit East Timor in December 2004, at the invitation of the country’s Foreign Minister Jose Ramos Horta. Professor Ramos Horta, a Nobel laureate and a long time supporter of microfinance, has dedicated his Peace Prize money to initiate microcredit programs in East Timor. The East Timorese government is seeking Grameen's technical expertise to scale up microfinance for the poor in this poverty stricken and war-affected island nation.

Professor Muhammad Yunus visited the headquarters of Google, the famous internet search engine, in May. His visit was part of a trip to Silicon Valley at the invitation of Vinod Khosla, co-founder of Sun Microsystems. Mr. Khosla and his wife Mrs. Neeru Khosla had visited Grameen Bank in February 2004 during the Microcredit Summit in Dhaka, when they made a trip to the villages to meet and talk to Grameen borrowers. Mr. Khosla made the observation during his visit that Grameen Bank and Google had one big common feature - they are both profitable enterprises that have made a huge social impact.

Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the founders of Google, drove Professor Yunus from Carmel Valley, California, to their headquarters. Among many other things they showed Professor Yunus a set of monitors which indicated the number of hits that Google was receiving all over the world at any given moment indicating the language in which the search is being made. At the time Professor Yunus was visiting Google headquarters it was dead of the night in Bangladesh. But Bangladeshi ‘googlers’ were busy ‘googling’. The monitor showed that at that point of time in Bangladesh the spike was concentrated over Dhaka, and the language being used was English.

Professor Yunus addressed the gathering of the Google staff, explained the work of Grameen Bank, and answered their questions. All of them showed enormous interest in the concept of Grameen Bank and microcredit.Readers may be interested to know that if Grameen is 'googled,' as many as 136,000 references appear !