new August 2005: the Grameen II Briefing Notes: see foot of this page
Independently published papers:

Stuart Rutherford and Imran Matin, Exploring Client Preferences in Microfinance: Some Observations from SafeSave, CGAP Focus Note Number 18, October 2000, available at CGAP
describes the wide variety of ways in which SafeSave clients use the SafeSave services

Imran Matin, New Thinking and New Forms of Microfinancial Service Provision in Bangladesh: A Comparative Study of ASA, SafeSave and Gono Bima, Institute for Development Policy and Management, University of Manchester, UK, Working Paper 37, 2002. Available on the IDPM website.
Compares three innovative approaches to microfinance in Bangaldesh

Imran Matin, David Hulme and Stuart Rutherford, Financial Services for the Poor and Poorest: Deepening Understanding to Improve Provision, Institute for Development Policy and Management, University of Manchester, UK, Working Paper 9, 1999. Available on the IDPM website.
A critical appraisal of microfinance in Bangladesh at the end of the twentieth century

Stuart Rutherford, Raising the Curtain on the 'microfinancial services era', CGAP Focus Note Number 15, May 2000, available at CGAP
a condensed version of the original article written for Small Enterprise Development

Mohammed Emrul Hasan and Monique Iglebaek, Microfinance with Un-reached People in the Rural Area: Experience and Learning, PLAN, Bangladesh 2004, Presented in Asia Pacific Region Microcredit Summit Meeting of Councils 18 February 2004, Dhaka. Read it in PDF format here.
An up-to-date discussion of how well some MFIs that have adapted the SafeSave approach are reaching poorer clients

Orlanda Ruthven and Sushil Kumar, Fine-grain Finance: Financial Choice and Strategy Among the Poor in Rural North India, IDPM 'Finance and Development' Working Paper No.57/2002, University of Manchester, 2002. Available on the IDPM website.
Shows how poor rural households manage their financial affairs: an account based on 'financial diary' research similar to that done in Bangladesh and more recently in South Africa

Stuart Rutherford and Sukhwinder Singh Arora, City Savers: How the poor, the DFID and its partners are promoting financial services in urban India, DFID India Urban Poverty Office, Delhi, 1997
describes research in India's slums

Stuart Rutherford with S K Sinha and Shyra Aktar, BURO, Tangail: Product Development Review, BURO, Tangail, Dhaka, 2001.
describes the products of this innovative Bangladesh MFI (of which the Finance Director, Mosharrof Hossain, is a SafeSave Member)

Stuart Rutherford, A Critical Typology of Financial Services for the Poor, ActionAid, London, 1996, Working Paper 1. Available at the CGAP website
describes, through examples, the many ways in which poor people create or gain access to basic financial services

Stuart Rutherford (author) with Leonard Mutesasira, Henry Sempangi, Harry Mugwanga, John Kashangaki, Florence Maximambali, Christopher Lwoga, David Hulme, and Graham Wright, Savings and the Poor: the methods, use and impact of savings by the poor of East Africa, MicroSave, 1999. Available on the MicroSave website.
An early MicroSave exploration of how poor people manage money in three East African countries

Leonard Mutesasira, Henry Sempangi, Harry Mugwanga, John Kashangaki, Florence Maximambali, Christopher Lwoga, David Hulme, Graham Wright, and Stuart Rutherford, Those Who Leave and Those Who Don´t Join: Insights from East African Microfinance Institutions, CGAP Focus Note Number 16, May 2000, available at CGAP
describes how restricted products get in the way of mircofinancial success

Journal Articles: there are many, so here is a small selecton


Stuart Rutherford, Money Talks: Conversations with Poor Households in Bangladesh about Managing Money, in Journal of Microfinance, Volume 5, Number 2, Winter 2003
reports on reserach in Bangladesh about the depth and variety of money management by poor households: see the JoM website.


Mohammed Emrul Hasan, Implications of Financial Innovations for the Poorest of the Poor in the Rural Area: Experience from Northern Bangladesh, in Journal of Microfinance, Volume 5, Number 2, Winter 2003. see the JoM website
a paper about MFIs in northern Bangladesh that are adapting the SafeSave approach

Stuart Rutherford, SafeSave: managing the savings of the poor, in World Trend, Number 3 for 2004, Institute of Developing Economies, Chiba, Japan (in Japanese). See the IDE website
Explains the ideas behind SafeSave to a Japanese audience

Stuart Rutherford, Raising the Curtain on the 'microfinancial services era' in Small Enterprise Development, Volume 11, Number 1, IT Publications, London 2000. See ITDG website.
Discusses how to make microfinance more responsive to the needs and demands of its poor users

Imran Matin, David Hulme and Stuart Rutherford, Finance for the Poor: From Microcredit to Microfinancial Services, in Journal of International Development, Volume 14, Number 2, Wiley, Chichester UK, 2002 <www.wiley.com>
Dr Imran Matin is a SafeSave Member and Head of Research at BRAC, a large Bangladeshi NGO

Stuart Rutherford, The Savings of the Poor, in Journal of International Development, Volume 10, Number 1, Wiley, Chichester UK, 1998 <www.wiley.com>
an early article urging MFIs to get serious about savings


Consultancy and Research Reports

There are many consultancy and research reports covering specific MFIs (BRAC, ASA, Grameen Bank, Proshika, CARE, BURO, Tangail and TRDEP in Bangladesh; Faulu in Kenya; VSSU in India, SKIP in Cambodia, ActionAid in Vietnam, European Union in the Philippines, for example) and many covering general issues (donor views on microfinance in Bangladesh, SHGs in India, lessons from abroad for microfinance in India, the role of savings in the money management of the poor, for example). Readers can request specific areas of interest. Below are just one or two especially interesting examples.

Jonathan Morduch and Stuart Rutherford, Microfinance: analytical issues for India, for World Bank, India, April 2003. Read it here as a PDF file
discusses what lessons Asian microfinance might hold for India

Stuart Rutherford and Mark Staehle, Innovative Approaches to Delivering MicroFinance Services: The case of VSSU, West Bengal, for MicroSave, July 2002. Read it here as a PDF file.
a case study of a small but growing informal microfinance provider that is striking out in its own way

Stuart Rutherford with Maniruzzaman, S K Sinha and Acnabin and Co, Grameen II at the end of 2003, for MicroSave, 2004. Read it here as a PDF file.
reports on field-level research into the success of Grameen's new products
Stuart Rutherford with Maniruzzaman, S K Sinha and Acnabin and Co, Grameen II Briefing Notes for MicroSave, 2005. Two-page summaries of Grameen II's work. Read them as PDF files:
GBIIBN 1: What is Grameen II
GBIIBN 2: Members Savings
GBIIBN 3: The New Loan Arrangements
GBIIBN 4: Financial Performance