The greatest triumph of microfinance is the demonstration that poor households can be reliable bank customers. The received wisdom at the start of the 1970s held that substantial subsidies were required to run financial institutions serving poor households in low-income countries. Government banks often shouldered the task of serving the poor, usually with a focus on farmers. However, most state-run banks were driven by political imperatives, and so they charged interest rates well below market rates and even then collected loan repayments only half- heartedly. The risks inherent in agricultural lending together with the misaligned incentives led.
