Speaking to Nobel Peace Prize winner Mohammad Yunnus, last year, about his work and ideas for the future, he disclosed that the trick to success is to closely observe what everyone else is doing, and then do something totally contradictory. He set up the Grameen Bank because he was convinced that it was, in fact, viable to build a financial market that served the poor. So he set about to turn traditional banking on its head, focusing on small loans to entrepreneurs, mostly women, and they have now lent more than $5.1 billion to 5.3 million people, and inspired many to look at microfinance as a business.

Since then they have created GrameenPhone, 62% owned by Norway’s Telenor, providing bulk airtime for ‘village phones’ that work like pay phones in rural areas, and GrameenShakti which sells home solar-panel systems throughout Bangladesh, and is growing at 15% a year without subsidies. Most interesting yet is a joint venture between Grameen and the French dairy company, Group Danone, to make a nutritious and inexpensive baby formula. See press release here.

As the business rationale for ‘bottom of pyramid‘ markets is developed and proven, let’s hope that we see a growing number of corporations partnering and investing in businesses that deliver products and services to the poor.