Talk:Grameen Bank

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[edit] Queries

The first paragraph states "He was inspired during the terrible Bangladesh famine of 1974 to ..."

Who is this "He" being referred to? Is it Muhammad Yunus? If so, then it should be stated explicitly, as that name does not appear until the fourth paragraph. Omission of this piece of information causes confusion at the very start of the article.

TheParanoidOne 22:21, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC) Thanks, I clarified the sentence to show Yunus indeed founded the bank this way. Rtgarden 13 April 2005

Why is it called Grameen? Is that someone's name, or does it have a meaning in Bangladeshi? Mamawrites 11:13, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

I think the article mentions that ... the word "Grameen" means "pertaining to villages" or "of the village/for the village"). The Bank's main activities involve the poor people from villages, that's probably why Yunus named it so. Thanks. --Ragib 13:07, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

In what language? This is not mentioned in the article, so if you'd like to edit to insert it, it'd be a valuable contribution. Mamawrites 10:45, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, I added it. The word "Grameen" comes from the Bengali language (also known as Bangla). --Ragib 14:54, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Great! I hope you don't mind, I moved it, because I don't think the information is important enough to go in the introductory section. (And I fixed the link to Bangla. It looks like this article is well positioned to be selected next in the improvement drive!Mamawrites 19:59, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Grameen means "rural" in Bengali, per http://www.nashvillepost.com/news/2006/10/13/nobel_peace_winner_has_phd_from_vanderbilt -Grammaticus Repairo 17:47, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

The article on poverty eradication, more extreme than poverty alleviation or poverty reduction needs to be created and/or the strategy of the bank should be called poverty reduction, meaning that this article could need further elaboration.Brz7

[edit] criticism

I am a rather major fan of the concept - and the role that Grameen appears to have played in Bangladesh's development. Is it possible to start a section talking about the socio-cultural impact of Grameen? And also, it would be useful to have examples of how the system is or is not immune to abuse or even corruption (Bangladesh being apparently amongst the most corrupt countries!). How wonderful to see this well-written page. ^freedomAnnawright 16:54, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Go ahead. Wikipedia expects users to be bold and make changes, for the better. Thanks. --Ragib 17:19, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

The Bangla version of the bank's name, in the first sentence of the article, seems to have gone wrong: can anyone fix? I don't know any Bangla.

--Sam Clark 13:31, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

It looks fine to me, are you sure you have a font that contains the necessary charset? You might want to try something like Code2000 if you're not sure (See Unicode typefaces) Nil Einne 09:45, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

I think I read on an AP article today a quote from a bangladeshi economist who argues that the Grameen bank's interest rates are too high. Borisblue 06:05, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ownership

Can somebody please explain (in the article) how the borrowers can be the owners? Borrowers take money out of an institution; ownership usually means having equity by having put money into an institution? mglg_(talk) 20:32, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I am curious as well on this matter. It doesn't make much sense as an economic entity. To explain in layman term, "Owner" means either the person is an investor or someone who purchased ownership from founding investor. Because lender didn't put any money into this bank, it is unfitting for them to be owner.

Theoretically, it is possible for the founder to give the shares to the lender as charity, but such an entity would fail because the lenders can vote to dissolve organization and not having to pay back. --Voidvector 23:13, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

It's pretty clear from the Bank's balance sheet. Share rights are issued with debt. Repayment of the debt converts the rights to paid-up shares. Thus the bank is owned by the successful borrowers. You can view the interest payments as a purchase of equity, if you need to translate this to a more western method of finance. The system needs a disinterested source of funds to get started, but the Bank had that (as did many western banks, btw) 150.101.30.44 (talk) 08:32, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] GA Candidacy - comments

In order for this article to be awarded good article status several issues need to be addressed:

Several sentences are marked with 'citation needed', in most cases the tag is justified. It must have these citations.
The 16 principles should be described, currently there is only a link.
The ownership-issue which was also addressed by several users on this talkpage needs to be researched and explained. Why is the majority of equity held by the banks debtors? Is there some requirement for them to buy stock in the grameen bank?
Information that compares Grameen bank to other banks: how high is their interest rate, how long is the average credit period.
Number of employees?

If these changes are made, I believe it could be awarded GA status.--DorisHノート 23:05, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

I have a comment of my own to make, why is the template asking for expert attention on this subject, is something missing? Homestarmy 04:14, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

On second thought, the details that I asked for: legal structure and business-related details, are typical requirements for class-A-level, where an expert reviews the article. The article looks fine now, it is broad in its coverage and mentions all important aspects.

I moved the uncited statements to talk, they can be re-added later with a citation. The article is neutral and stable, it is well written and adequately structured. The images are fine and there are no licence problems. It's a good article.--DorisHノート 18:58, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I removed the article as part of the GA Sweeps because a vast part of the article was self-sourced. Secondly the lead needs to be enlarged to better summarise info. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 07:24, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Removed statements that need a (better) source

Former Finance Minister of Bangladesh, Saifur Rahman, commented that giving the poor some money does not make them well off. They are suceptible when larger corporations take over. He also mentioned that Bangladesh's rapid GDP growth had more to do with industrializaiton of large companies (hence giving the poor more jobs) rather than keeping them tied to their agrarian roots with microcredit.^{[citation needed]} The organisation has also been criticised for exploiting the traditional social positions of Women in Bangladeshi rural society to enforce repayments. This leads to enormous pressure on female borrowers. [1]

[edit] Interest rates

There is a good article in Today's Daily Prothom Alo, in the editorials/op-ed page. A Deputy Managing Director has explained the interest rate structure for Grameen Bank in detail. --Ragib 05:23, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I am afraid this is in Bengali language [2]. Maybe you could summarize it and add it to the article with a citation?--DorisHノート 10:00, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Criticism

Please note I have moved two seperate sections both about the Criticism section in the main article into one and answered both questions. --Logiboy123 (talk) 00:46, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Do you call this a good article? well mostly, maybe...but I think that the "criticsm" section is awful! Sorry if I am that direct.. but what that part tells is untrue! I understand that the president of Bangladesh may have said those words..but this doesn't mean that it is reasonable to report it... I think that the neutral point of view requires to either erase that part or put more reasonable criticism! 5th june 2007 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.208.36.87 (talk • contribs)

As far are Criticism sections go, this one is pretty tame. Almost all articles dealing with this level of business / programs require a criticism section. After reading the comments from three different experts I would say that their opinion based observations are interesting and valid. At the same time this section leaves the reader with the question "Is this program / business better for the community or not?" and provokes the reader to investigate further. That is a good thing. Feel free to rewrite the section for better flow, but I would be extremely reluctant to see the section disappear. How exactly does this section violate the NPOV requirement? --Logiboy123 (talk) 00:46, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Do we really need this libertarian criticism section? I'm all for a comprehensive representation of criticism pertaining to the Grameen Bank (preferably not microcredit as a whole), but this quote is outlandish and doesn't represent anything aside from Tucker's myopic interpretation of the program. Anon 16:30, 5 November, 2006

Yes. All programs have their detractors and the comments are not ignorant of the program itself and highlight some possible flaws. No system is perfect and the flaws should be visible just as the benefits are. Many people will ask themselves how a business that does not charge interest can keep providing services. This is a valid point and a valid criticism of the program, whilst not demanding that everyone agree. Further the criticism portion of the article is in balance with the rest of the article and does not dominate. --Logiboy123 (talk) 00:46, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New Informantions

Caretaker Government of Bangladesh amended Grameen Bank ordinance to allow the bank to extend their activities all over the country. The government reduced it share from 25 to 15 percent. There would be two government nominated members in the board of directors of the bank instead of two and from now on board of directors would elect their chairman themselves. Reference. Please include this informantions in proper places. Regards--Tarif from Bangladesh 11:40, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ref removal

Copied from User talk:Blnguyen

Thanks for your interest in the article on Grameen Bank. But, you seem to have removed a number of primary source citations from the article. Those were from the list of the company's own subsidiaries, it's performance details made public, and its stated policy. If there is no blanket call against all primary sources, it is difficult see why all that should be removed. I also looked for the reason of the GA delisting of the article, but it seems that it was not reported/discussed anywhere. If you could lead me to any report/notice/discussion on the reason why, I may be able to improve upon the article. Aditya^{(talk • contribs)} 10:11, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

End of copied text

I copied the text above to start the discussion here. I have a few things to understand. And, that may come not necessarily from the editor I approached first. Aditya^{(talk • contribs)} 17:35, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

While I would not argue the removal of GA status - which is a subjective judgement - I strongly protest the removal of references from the article because they are from primary sources. Wikipedia guidelines for organizations clearly stipulates "Once notability is established, primary sources may be used to add content. Ultimately, and most importantly, all content must be attributable." While too much dependence on primary source may hamper the quality of article, removing reference from sourced statements is a direct attack against wikipedia's core principle of verifiability and damages the article much more. If any editor can replace any primary source information of this article with a reliable 3rd party source, (s)he is very much welcome. Otherwise please STOP removing references. Arman ^(Talk) 02:45, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Arman. I've looked at the references Arman is talking about ... certainly we can use Grameen's website for the number of branches it has. --Ragib (talk) 03:33, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

See my talk page. I was planning on adding third-party sources within the next few days. I have removed the references again, as it will make it easier for me to identify what I need to re-source. Nishkid64 (talk) 17:55, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Your plan of adding third-party sources is much appreciated, but removing references to identify what need to be resourced is an illogical reason to damage an article. There is something called the "Sandbox" for this type of work. Please use them if you want to play around with articles. Arman ^(Talk) 03:39, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Given that people were going to work on the article to fix the issues ASAP, I didn't think it would be a problem. Nishkid64 (talk) 23:03, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] More 3rd party reference

Here are a few 3rd party sources on the subject. I'll try to improve the article based on this. meanwhile others can get started:

Khandker, Shahidur R.; Baqui, M. A. & Khan Z. H. [1995]. Grameen Bank: Performance and Sustainability. World Bank Publications. ISBN 0821334638. Retrieved on 2008-01-16.

Hossain, Mahabub [February 1988]. Credit for Alleviation of Rural Poverty: The Grameen Bank in Bangladesh. Int Food Policy Res Inst IFPRI. ISBN 0896290670. Retrieved on 2008-01-16.

Morduch, Jonathan (October 1999). "The role of subsidies in microfinance: evidence from the Grameen Bank". Journal of Development Economics 60 (1): 229-248. Elsevier.

[edit] Question

The article says that the Bank has inspired similar projects across the world. Could someone list these projects? Nishkid64 (talk) 22:09, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

This site lists a number of similar initiatives. JACO PLANE • 2008-01-20 22:32

[edit] Review by Blnguyen

I am copying the section below from my talk page into here so that editors who are working on this article can easily access these review comments. In my opinion, all of the comments below are more of fine-tuning type improvements which may be relevant for an FA assessment, but shouldn't fail a GA assessment. While I'll continue to work on these, I leave it to the GA reviewer to assess independently. Arman ^(Talk) 06:53, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

WP policy discourages having separate criticism sections, so it should be integrated into the main body where the article discusses the Grameen banking model.

WP policy allows both separate section and integration. Since, in the case of Grameen Bank the supporters and the critics seem to belong to two different "schools", it seems appropriate to me to have a separate section on criticism. Arman ^(Talk) 07:11, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

The other thing that I noticed and have corrected partially is that the refs are not done in a consistent manner, expecially in the page numbering style, there are some with dots, no dots, P, p etc. Y Done

"On July 11, 2005 the Grameen Mutual Fund One, approved by the SEC of Bangladesh, went IPO" - what are SEC and IPO?

Done

It's better to try and prosify lists if possible.

Done

"although it should be noted that this opinion is likely influenced by Islamic banking principles, which forbid interest-bearing investments in accordance with Islamic Law" - after Hasina's comment -> If the Economist pundit said this then it should be attributed, else it has to be removed as personal defense by a supporter

Done

Ref 21 by DC Barua is not actually independent since Mr Barua is one of the GB's managers. In general for the statistics, independent sources should be used, to eliminate possible false/self-promoting information by businesses/religious/political organisations etc. So in this case, independent statistics should be used for things like success rate, coverage rate because organisations are not trusted to give a non-inflated account of themselves. Of course, self-sourcing is allowed to state the press releases/POV/policy statements of the organisation.

I have clarified the source with the following remark: "Based on a paper presented in the Global Microcredit Summit in 2006 by one of the bank's managers, ..." etc. The cited information is amount of loan disbursed and amount of loan repaid, not success rate/coverage rate. For actual amount desbursement and recovery (which is simple record-keeping information, not result of sophisticated analysis) an audited firm is unlikely to lie, and for this type of information, the company source is ultimately the only source. Arman ^(Talk) 03:34, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

In some places there is USD and others US$. Consistency in style needs to be checked.

Done

"In a country in which few women may take out loans from large commercial banks, the fact that most (97%) loan recipients are women is a significant accomplishment." the second part is POV and needs to be attributed to some economist saying that the female involvement is notable.

Done

I can't really say anything about the content since I don't know anything about financial matters at all. I think the consistency of style needs to be looked at. The article probably could/should be longer [I prefer detail in my writing] since the organisation won a Nobel Prize and is much discussed. Generally speaking the writing style is probably ok but could always be improved, especially if you want FA eventually. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 05:56, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

These are legitimate issues that need to be fixed. Blnguyen's points are related to the overall state of the article, and the concerns raised are not GA-specific. Nishkid64 (talk) 07:02, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Something I've noticed on the article is that the phrase "16 Decisions" only appears once, at the top of a list. That doesn't really explain what these decisions are, etc....wait, scrap that, I saw it noted, although a bit more information about that could potentially be useful.

Done IMO the "Operational statistics" section could do with more prose and less listing, but I'm not sure what precedent is in these cases.

Done The nobel prize info can surely be expanded, you can't honestly say there's nothing to talk about there, or not enough sources.

Done Finally, I'd think there could be more in terms of criticism, or else you could expand that section a bit. (Yes, for the record, Blnguyen asked me to take a look at this) Hope this helps - cheers, dihydrogen monoxide (H₂0) 07:10, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Oh yeah, and there are way too many external links, which can either be removed or used as refs (if not used already).

Done dihydrogen monoxide (H₂0) 07:10, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

I believe I have addresses all specific concerns. Please let me know if I am missing something. Also note that the article is now 32kb in size, which is the recommended size limit for Wikipedia articles. Arman ^(Talk) 05:59, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] High Interest as Criticism

The use of source 41 to substantiate "Similar to all microfinance institutes, the interest charged by Grameen Bank is higher compared to traditional banks as Grameen's interest (reducing balance basis) on its main credit product is about 20%." as a Criticism is not rhetorically sound. The article goes in detail to explain why the interest on micro-credit loans is necessarily higher (smaller loan amounts means more loan amounts, need more interest to subsidize transaction/personnel costs). Examining the intent of the author for source 41, I seriously doubt the cited statement was intended to be a criticism. 153.104.188.99 (talk) 20:45, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

The reference for the fact that high interest is a criticism is Ref 40. Ref 41 quantifies the interest charged (i.e. 20%) and adds an qualification to this criticism with the words "Similar to all microfinance institutes" - which is consistent with the intent of the auther. Arman ^(Talk) 02:07, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] GrameenBankWiki

Does somebody know a dedicated Wiki for people involved in the GrameenBank activities? Owners as lenders. Fridemar (talk) 00:33, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] GA Review

GA review (see here for criteria)

An overall good article, although the more detailed concerns outlined in the former GAR will have to be addressed for FAC. Also, minor prose issues may become problematic during FAC.

It is reasonably well written.

a (prose): b (MoS):

some sentences are too long/clunky. Also some small problems with phrasing, commas, etc. For FAC, will require a fine-toothed ce comb.
It is factually accurate and verifiable.

a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

Some self-reference remains, although this seems to have been better-supplanted by more diverse sources.

3a=aye

It is broad in its coverage.

a (major aspects): [[Image:|15px]] b (focused):

per above, this article could be further improved by more details and explanations (ex. What are the 16 Decisions and how do they ensure high recovery rate?)
It follows the neutral point of view policy.

Fair representation without bias:
It is stable.

No edit wars etc.:
It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

the article could benefit from more images (ex. pics of the Nobel Award ceremony, pictures representing the other Grameen enterprises, pictures of Bangladesh, etc.)
Overall:

Pass/Fail:

--Malachirality (talk) 02:02, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Talk:Grameen Bank

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Contents

[edit] Queries

[edit] criticism

[edit] Ownership

[edit] GA Candidacy - comments

[edit] Removed statements that need a (better) source

[edit] Interest rates

[edit] Criticism

[edit] New Informantions

[edit] Ref removal

[edit] More 3rd party reference

[edit] Question

[edit] Review by Blnguyen

[edit] High Interest as Criticism

[edit] GrameenBankWiki

[edit] GA Review

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