The Grameen Bank of Bangladesh is the best-known and most widely imitated microfinance pioneer. But Grameen found itself in trouble in the late 1990s as the quality of its loan portfolio beagn to decline sharply, and a devastating flood further eroded loan repayments.  It responded by adopting a new model in 2001, dubbed Grameen II. Grameen II was designed to be more flexible than the original model:  aligning repayment schedules with household income flow, meeting the demand for secure and reliable savings products, and acknowledging the varied needs of clients. This brief documents Grameen II's innovations in product design.

This is the seventh note in the Portfolios of the Poor Briefing Notes series. You can link to the other notes below.

Briefing Note 1: The "Triple-Whammy" of Poverty
Briefing Note 2: Borrowing to Save
Briefing Note 3: How do the Poor Deal with Risk?
Briefing Note 4: Research Methodologies
Briefing Note 5: Creating Better Portfolios—Core Financial Products for the Poor
Briefing Note 6: Portfolios of Bangladesh’s Poor
Briefing Note 8: Understanding Price
Briefing Note 9: Three-Country Analysis

These Briefing Notes were created as part of a toolkit of instructional resources for FAI and MicroSave’s June 8-9 virtual conference Reimagining Microfinance Around the World: Implementing Lessons from Portfolios of the Poor. Co-authors Daryl Collins, Jonathan Morduch, Stuart Rutherford and Orlanda Ruthven, and MicroSave’s Graham A.N. Wright moderated the event and discussed with conference “attendees” how to turn lessons from the financial diaries into real, on-the-ground solutions for economic development. The collection of suggested readings and videos for the conference can be accessed on this page.