“And with your great help, we will be able to grow and help more poor people,” Edet says with a beaming smile.

I smile and ask him about his client base. His new microfinance organization, launched just 3 months ago in Lagos, Nigeria, already has acquired 300 micro-depositors. Impressive.

A typical micro-deposit customer might be someone who sells yams on the side of the road in a wheelbarrow. He picks the yams up outside the city, wheels them to what he thinks would be a good sales corner and then spends a long day trying to sell yams. In a day, he can make about 500 Naira, or about $4. After daily necessities, he might have fifty cents or so to save. Save for a month and at the end, maybe he can buy a new pair of pants or shoes. (more…)