It is originated in 1976, in the work of Muhammad Yunus, a professor at the University of Chittagong, who launched a research project to study how to design a credit delivery system to provide banking services to the rural poor.

[11] Yunus believed that making such loans available to a larger population could stimulate businesses and reduce the widespread rural poverty in Bangladesh.

[15] The bank's repayment rate suffered from economic disruption following the 1998 flood in Bangladesh, but it recovered in subsequent years.

In 2011, the Bangladesh government forced Yunus to resign from Grameen Bank, saying that at age 72, he was years beyond the legal limit for the position.

These measures seek to restore the bank’s governance to its pre-2011 framework, increasing control for microcredit borrowers and decreasing state involvement.

[24][25] Grameen Bank is founded on the principle that loans are better than charity, to interrupt poverty: they offer people the opportunity to take initiatives in business or agriculture, which provide earnings and enable them to pay off the debt.

The bank is founded on the belief that people have endless potential, and unleashing their creativity and initiative helps them end poverty.

The bank has set a new goal: to make each of its branch locations free of poverty, as defined by benchmarks such as having adequate food and access to clean water and latrines.

Since the bank embraced the Sixteen Decisions, almost all Grameen borrowers have their school-age children enrolled in regular classes.

[30] No legal instrument (i.e. no written contract) is made between Grameen Bank and its borrowers; the system works based on trust.

[31] To supplement the lending, Grameen Bank requires the borrowing members to save very small amounts regularly in a number of funds, designated for emergency, the group, etc.

[34] Grameen says that more than half of its borrowers in Bangladesh (close to 50 million) have risen out of acute poverty thanks to their loan, as measured by such standards as having all children of school age in school, all household members eating three meals a day, a sanitary toilet, a rainproof house, clean drinking water, and the ability to repay a 300 taka-a-week (around US$4) loan.

In 2009, the Grameen Creative Lab collaborated with the Yunus Centre to create the Global Social Business Summit.

The meeting has become the main platform for social businesses worldwide to foster discussions, actions and collaborations to develop effective solutions to the most pressing problems plaguing the world.

In the Village Phone program, women entrepreneurs can start businesses to provide wireless payphone service in rural areas.

[37] In the press release announcing the prize, the Development Gateway Foundation noted that through this program: ... Grameen has created a new class of women entrepreneurs who have raised themselves from poverty.

Moreover, it has improved the livelihoods of farmers and others who are provided access to critical market information and lifeline communications previously unattainable in some 28,000 villages of Bangladesh.

[37]In 2003, Grameen Bank started a new program, different from its traditional group-based lending, exclusively targeted to the beggars in Bangladesh.

Employees receive 6 months of on-the-job training, while shadowing qualified and experienced individuals from various branches of Grameen.

The goal of this training is for the trainee to "appreciate the unexplored potential of the destitute" and to discover new ways to solve problems that arise within the Grameen branch.

After completing the 6-month period, trainees return to Dhaka headquarters for review and critique before appointment to a bank branch.

[citation needed] From modest beginnings three decades ago, Yunus has, first and foremost through Grameen Bank, developed micro-credit into an ever more important instrument in the struggle against poverty.

Professor Ole Danbolt Mjøs, Chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, in his speech, said that, by giving the prize to Grameen Bank and Muhammad Yunus, the Norwegian Nobel Committee wanted to encourage attention on achievements of the Muslim world, on the women's perspective, and on the fight against poverty.

[53] On 11 July 2005, the Grameen Mutual Fund One (GMFO), approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission of Bangladesh, was listed as an initial public offering.

One of the first mutual funds of its kind, GMFO will allow the more than four million Grameen bank members, as well as non-members, to buy into Bangladesh's capital markets.

[55] Grameen Foundation, which has an A-rating from [Charity Watch],[56] provides microloans in the USA (the only developed country where this is done), and supports microfinance institutions worldwide with loan guarantees, training, and technology transfer.

[60][61][62] Researchers have noted instances when microloans from the Grameen Bank were linked to exploitation and pressures on poor families to sell their belongings, leading in extreme cases to humiliation and ultimately suicides.

[63] The Mises Institute's Jeffrey Tucker suggests that microcredit banks depend on subsidies to operate, thus acting as another example of welfare.

[67]David Roodman[68] and Jonathan Morduch[69] question the statistical validity of studies of microcredit's effects on poverty, noting the complexity of the situations involved.

[70] Yoolim Lee and Ruth David discuss how microfinance and the Grameen model in South India have in recent years been distorted by venture capitalism and profit-makers.