THE FOUNDATION

Assisting the excluded and handicapped people

_Presentation

Rethinking consumer credit with focus on microcredit
The aim of the LaSer Solidarity Initiatives Foundation is to think about credit for people in developed countries in the new context created by the US subprimes crisis in the summer of 2007. It will bring together experts and independent players, especially prominent international personalities.

The Foundation was created as a result of the realization that half of almost 5000 billion outstanding consumer loans distributed worldwide are concentrated in the US. Even if the US has long been in a special situation in terms of the global economy, the various regional diversities in developed countries have tended to be ignored due to a de facto leadership concerning products, marketing methods and concepts coming from North America. So, the major shockwaves caused by the subprimes crisis made it necessary to rethink consumer credit in countries which felt that the American experience might just be what lay ahead for them too.

At the same time, certain practices appearing in other parts of the world were offering a whole new way of thinking about credit. For example the development of microcredit shows a whole new approach: based less on scoring and more on talking to people, relativising their past and present by focusing on their projects and future, prioritizing the poorest and most needy rather than those who are considered solvable. The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 to Professor Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank has helped to make people even more aware of these new approaches.

The situation is one of a serious crisis in the most advanced credit models in developed countries, questioned by those who see real advances being made in developing countries. What is the use of the capital, the know-how, and the expertise built up in the financial institutions of the developed world if they are not capable of doing at least as well as what is proposed with the limited resources available in developing countries?

_Missions

Three areas in which action is essential
The LaSer Solidarity Initiatives Foundation has given itself the task of making progress in these issues based on three approaches:

_The actions and practices that LaSer has been leading for several years now to assist the most fragile borrowers by developing personal microcredit in France;

_An approach of concertation and dialogue led by LaSer since May 2008 alongside experts, social partners, charity organizations, etc… to come up with development ideas in France for 'emancipation credit', renewing all consumer credit based on approaches inspired by microcredit;

_An approach of international reflection especially based on contacts initiated by LaSer with Professor Yunus and Grameen Bank in Bangladesh and with the CPA and social banks in the US, especially Ron Grzywinski and Shorebank.

So the aim is to implement a groundbreaking process associating corporate actions, concertation with the social players in a country, and launching collective reflection with leading international players.

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