This is an analysis of the potential of community-based financial services to reduce poverty and combat social exclusion in Britain. From this base, the authors move to a critical review of the outcomes of microfinance interventions around the world. They consider innovative economic responses to poverty in countries such as Bangladesh and Bolivia. Then drawing on their own research, they set out ways to counter financial exclusion in Britain; how to enable people to build assets and acquire capital, and provide mechanisms for the wealth retention in communities deserted by conventional banks.