Microfinance ought to be high on the agenda of policymakers looking for an imaginative response to the global financial crisis.

As an ethical, responsible financial system that serves productive businesses through intimate knowledge of the client, it is founded upon principles that are diametrically opposed to those practiced by the conventional bankers that sparked the crisis.

On the face of it, microfinance would seem too small an activity to be of significant importance in the on-going global financial crisis. It concerns only the world's poorest entrepreneurs, who borrow only a few hundred dollars per year in order to secure their working capital, or to develop their small business. Globally, microfinance is a $30 billion industry, which only represents a small percentage of the $80 trillion global banking system.