The Wall Street Journal has a report from India about mounting concerns of a credit crisis in microfinance. That's the business of making small loans to some of the poorest people in the world.

Micro lending fights poverty by helping poor people finance small businesses -- snack stalls, fruit trees, milk-producing buffaloes -- in slums and other places where it's tough to get a normal loan. But what began as a social experiment to aid the world's poorest has also shown it can turn a profit.