Posted on February 5, 2009 - by Gavin

‘Banker to the Poor’ seeks US credit union license…

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Microfinance pioneer Muhammad Yunus, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in alleviating poverty, said he wants to open credit unions in the recession-gripped United States.

Yunus, who opened Grameen America bank in New York a year ago in the bank’s first implant in the developed world, said he was seeking a US credit union license to “work in any state.”

The global financial crisis is an “exciting, great opportunity … to redo our life, our institutions, our policies,” the Bangladeshi economist, nicknamed “Banker to the Poor,” told a forum in Washington to promote his latest book, “Creating a World Without Poverty.”

Yunus said he had met earlier in the day with Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke and they had discussed microfinance, which extends small amounts of credit to the poor so they can start businesses, and the US government’s bailout plan aimed at averting a meltdown of the world’s biggest economy…

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