Making an impact on the lives of poor people through ethical and Sharia-compliant financial inclusion is what success means for the GEMicro Group.

Microfinance was hailed in the late 1990s and early 2000s as an all-cure against poverty with the founder of the Grameen Bank, Prof Mohammed Yunus winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005. But since, our understanding of poverty and its causes and what contributes to poor people’s well-being has become more nuanced and the financial inclusion community has recognised that access to credit alone is not sufficient to assist the poor.

More emphasis is therefore paid to developing impact assessment metrics and methodologies, work that GEMicro has been involved with.