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A genius Bangladeshi banker and economist, Muhammad Yunus is the developer and founder of the concept of microcredit, the extension of small loans to entrepreneurs too poor to qualify for traditional bank loans. Yunus is also the founder of Grameen Bank .
In 2006, Yunus and the bank were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize "for their efforts to create economic and social development from below." Yunus himself has received several other international honors, including the Ramon Magsaysay Award, the World Food Prize, and the Sydney Peace Prize. He is the author of Banker to the Poor and a founding board member of Grameen Foundation.
Muhammad Yunus is often referred to as "the world's banker to the poor." His life's work has been to prove that the poor are credit-worthy.
His revolutionary Grameen (Village) banking system is estimated to have extended credit to more than seven million of the world's poor, most of them in Bangladesh, one of the poorest nations in the world.
The vast majority of the beneficiaries are women.
Yunus came up with the idea in 1976 while he was professor of economics at Chittagong University in southern Bangladesh.
US first lady Hillary Clinton said in 2000 that Yunus had helped the Clintons introduce microcredit schemes to some of the poorest communities in Arkansas.
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