Grameen Bank, founded by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, has been ranked 12th on the magazine Fortune's first Change the World list, says a press release of the Yunus Centre in Dhaka.
Fortune announced its inaugural Change the World list, a ranking of 51 companies that have made an impact on major global social or environmental problems as part of their competitive strategy, it has added.
It is the recognition for creating new economic opportunities for those in poverty and bringing unbanked peopled under financial services.
For the first time, the magazine's Change the World list is ranking companies not by the dollars they make, but the good they are doing.
According to the World Bank, globally, microfinance accounts for at least $60 billion in loans annually and has reached 135 million people. This is the first list of its kind, in which companies are recognised-and competitively ranked-on business innovations that positively impact pressing social and environmental issues.
Moreover, Danone, one of the social business partners of Grameen, ranked 14th on the Fortune's Change the World list as a brand offering products that address poor nutrition.
Grameen and Danone Group went into a joint venture to launch a yogurt product fortified with micro-nutrients to decrease malnutrition for the children of Bangladesh in 2005.
The UK-based Vodafone and Kenyan telecom Safaricom have been jointly ranked first in the list followed by Google, Toyota and Walmart, ranked second, third and fourth respectively. The Italian energy company Ellen and UK-based pharmaceutical multinational company GSK (GlaxoSmithKline) have been ranked fifth and sixth.
The Indian agro-machinery company Jain Irrigation Systems, US-based communication equipment company Cisco, Switzerland-based multinational pharma company Novartis and the social network Facebook are ranked seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth respectively.
The US-based financial service company Mastercard is ranked 11th followed by the Grameen Bank in the 12th position.
