Reaching 100 million of India's rural poor with savings and credit by 2008: This is NABARD's goal through its SHG banking program, leveraging the strength of the formal banking system and the flexibility of informal self-help groups in providing adequate financial services to the rural poor....

There are two outstanding aspects to Nabard’s Linking Banks and Self-Help Groups: with an outreach to 500,000 SHGs and a population of 40m rural poor, it is the largest non-directed microsavings & microcredit program in the developing world; and its bank lending rates – fluctuating at market...