This book is, above all, an effort to preserve the facts regarding the beginnings and first 40 years of microfinance in Peru.
In Peru, bank credit had never existed for the poor. But twenty years ago the scene began to change radically. Today, an extraordinary number and variety of lending institutions provide loans, deposits and other financial services to millions of poor households.
The seeds of most of Peru’s current microfinance institutions and technologies were planted during the 1980s and early 1990s. The time and place could hardly have been less auspicious for financial ventures. It was a context of high inflation, virulent terrorism, institutional breakdown, economic collapse and a once-in-a-century natural disaster. The key to the microcredit boom was the discovery of ways to substitute for standard bank collateral requirements.
Peru's microfinance revolution was a collective result of a large number and variety of initiatives and the individuals responsible for them.