Mohammed Yunus, Nobel Peace Prize-winner and founder of micro-finance, has criticised micro-finance lenders who make big profits out of their lending, saying that micro-credit should not be about rich people making money out of the poor.

Yunus, who was speaking today at the Good Deals conference, said if people wanted to make money, they shouldn’t call it micro-credit.

“Micro-finance became very popular,” he said. “And people were making profits out of the poor. I was critical of this.”

Talking about his micro-credit scheme in Bangladesh that especially helped women in the country and led to 20,000 beggars becoming small sellers, Yunus said it had brought dignity and self-reliance to people.

“Grameen Bank is now worth $15bn with 97 per cent of loans repaid and the 8.3 million borrowers have $1bn in savings.”

Bangladesh is on track to meet the first target, set out in the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, on ending poverty and hunger by 2015.

Yunus said social finance was not about making money, calling it selfless business, where you just get your money back over time. Yunus also said the Bangladeshi government wanted to be seen to be a part of micro-finance as it wanted to be seen to be helping poor women in Bangladesh, to win their votes.

Yunus was forced by the Bangladeshi government to step down from Grameen Bank, which he founded, due to a rule that no-one over 60 can run a government-owned bank.

“It is insane and doesn’t make sense as we are independent,” he said.