Asia PR News

REDMOND, Wash., July 28 /PRNewswire-AsiaNet/ –

$1.1 Million Investment Will Bring Poverty-Alleviating Microfinance Services
to 500,000 Clients by 2009

Unitus (www.unitus.com) today announced a $1.1 million investment in
microfinance institution (MFI) Grameen Koota (GK) (www.grameenkoota.org) in
Bangalore, Karnataka, India. The MFI partnership will help GK grow from serving
22,000 to 500,000 clients by 2009. Unitus will provide up to $1 million in
catalytic debt and a $100,000 grant for investment in human resources
development and implementation of improved management information systems.

"Grameen Koota excels at the on-the-ground work of bringing life-changing
microfinance services to India’s poor," said Unitus President and CEO Geoff
Davis. "By helping accelerate Grameen Koota’s growth, together we’ll reach
500,000 clients at a rate that defies industry norms."

Unitus chose GK because of their exceptional leadership team, urban
expansion plans, and demonstrated success serving Karnataka’s working poor.

"Our estimates show that if they had access, almost three and a half
million poor in Karnataka could leverage microfinance services to enhance their
income and help feed their families, send their children to school, and obtain
proper health care," said GK’s Founder and CEO, Ms. Vinatha Reddy. "With
Unitus’s involvement, we plan to address that demand."

For more than 30 years, microfinance — including microcredit loans as
small as $50 — has empowered millions of poor people worldwide to improve
their lives by helping them expand their small businesses and increase their
families’ financial security. But despite these successes, MFIs still only
reach an estimated 16 percent of the 500 million people who could use their
services. The primary challenge for microfinance is to scale this
high-potential industry to meet the enormous demand. Unitus was created to help
transform this opportunity into reality.

About Unitus
Unitus is a global microfinance accelerator, acting as a social venture
capital investor for the microfinance industry. Unitus identifies the
highest-potential microfinance institutions (MFIs) in developing countries and
helps accelerate their growth through capital investments and
capacity-building consulting, thus empowering them to help exponentially more
poor people worldwide. In doing so, Unitus aims to demonstrate that MFIs can be
run as profitable, large-scale, poverty-focused businesses with links to local
capital markets. As of June 2005, Unitus has seven MFI partners worldwide
serving more than 399,000 poor clients. Based in Redmond, Washington, USA, and
with offices in Bangalore, India, Unitus is a nonprofit organization that
relies on innovative financial instruments, and the financial resources of
like-minded individuals and foundations, to fulfill its mission.

About Grameen Koota
Grameen Koota (GK) offers microfinance services to help poor women in
Karnataka’s rural areas and urban slums work themselves and their families out
of poverty. GK works to empower women, create livelihood opportunities, reduce
vulnerability of the poor, and provide credit to the unorganized sector. Since
GK launched their microfinance program in 1999 they have grown to serve more
than 23,500 clients as of June 2005.

Contact:
David Schappell
425-881-2793
dschappell@unitus.com

SOURCE: Unitus

CONTACT: David Schappell of Unitus,
+1-425-881-2793, or
dschappell@unitus.com

Web site: http://www.unitus.com