Microfinance is on its way to becoming mainstream. This transition creates tremendous opportunities for the service providers involved and, more importantly, for the millions of people who will, as a consequence, newly have access to financial services. Today, we can optimistically predict that in the coming decade the promise of microfinance will be substantially achieved. However, the road to fulfilling this promise is not without significant challenge and uncertainty.

This article, by Elisabeth Rhyne and María Otero, was published in the Winter/Spring 2007 issue of MIT's innovations journal.