Asset Building; savings; opportunity; economic development; microfinance; financial services; Poverty; CGI

On the horizon of this year's Clinton Global Initiative, I saw the next frontier for pioneers of the global asset-building field.  At past CGIs, microfinance (and microcredit in particular) has been centrally celebrated and largely heralded as a panacea to global poverty.  However, this year, there seemed to be an undercurrent of recognition the microfinance field, in its current construction, simply can't do it all.  More specifically, there are two very important poor populations that microfinance simply doesn't reach - those in extreme poverty whose needs are too small for average microloans, and those who own small and medium-sized businesses too large for the average microloan but too small to access finance from formal banks.  A big players are lining up to fill the void.