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  3. Microfinance is an anti-poverty tool. If you make small loans to groups of poor women, they always repay them on time. Microfina

Microfinance is an anti-poverty tool. If you make small loans to groups of poor women, they always repay them on time. Microfina

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问题    Microfinance is an anti-poverty tool. If you make small loans to groups of poor women, they always repay them on time. Microfinance has grown rapidly in many countries. Yet the industry has come under attack for being too commercial.
   In Bangladesh the government has capped the annual interest rate that microfinance institutions (MFIs) can charge at 27%. In Andhra Pradesh (AP) , the Indian state with the most microfinance borrowers, local politicians have bullied the business to a virtual halt. These steps are ostensibly motivated by a desire to defend the poor from getting stuck in a debt. But they are wrong-headed.
   Despite charging seemingly high interest rates, MFIs typically have thin margins because of the high costs of making and collecting payments on millions of tiny loans. Pressing them to reduce rates further would jeopardize their ability to attract private capital, inhibiting their growth.
   In fact, the poor often use microloans to pay off far more expensive loans from village moneylenders. This suggests that restricting people’s access to microcredit by capping rates could have the perverse effect of driving more poor people into the arms of village loan-sharks. That would be good news for these moneylenders, but is surely not the outcome that policymakers want.
   Sensible regulation need not be at odds with a thriving microfinance industry. Peru, for example, is ranked as having the best business environment for microfinance, in part because the regulator has successfully set and enforced rules on capital buffers, leading to a more stable environment for the industry. India, in contrast, is yet to decide whether rules governing microfinance are to be set at the national level or by individual states.
   Many things can be done. For instance, an association of Indian MFIs is trying to set up a credit bureau which would allow them to track clients’ overall indebtedness and credit histories, thus guarding them against lending a person more than she is able to handle. This would be helped enormously if the government sped up its efforts to give all Indians a universal identification number. The Indian government should also allow MFIs to take deposits, which they are currently prevented from doing: this would make them less dependent on capital markets for funding. Actually there are more useful measures for the poor than an interest-rate cap.
According to the author, what would happen if people’s access to microfinance is restricted ?
选项 A、The profit of MFIs would be reduced.
B、Poor people would not be trapped in a debt.
C、People would only get more costly loans.
D、Policymakers would be thrilled at the outcome.
答案C
解析 本题是推理题，要求考生理解限制人们小额信贷的后果是迫使穷人转向利率更高的高利贷者借贷。关键点：…could have the perverse effect of driving more poor people into the arms of village loan-sharks…
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