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Greece has experienced rapid growth in immigrant and refugee populations since 1990. Although most are immigrants from Albania and throughout the Balkan region, some immigrant and refugee groups arriving in Greece also come from the former Soviet Union, Southeast Asia and Africa. Some of these newcomers have started small businesses in their quest to become economically self-sufficient, serve the consumer needs of fellow newcomers, and integrate into community life. The purpose of this research is two-fold: to review the extant literature on social and economic factors influencing immigrant entrepreneurship in Greece, and to determine characteristics and business profiles of Albanian immigrant-owned small businesses within the municipality of Attiki — the location of Athens, Greece's capital city and largest urban center.

Microfinance, as an industry, has rapidly evolved since the mid-1990s. Changes were so fundamental they amounted to what Harvard University’s Marguerite Robinson called the “microfinance revolution.” What was initially a niche sector of mostly small, non-profit, donor-dependent efforts aimed at poverty alleviation, is today a full-fledged global industry. The large majority of microfinance clients worldwide are customers of large-scale, self-sustainable microfinance institutions (MFIs) not reliant on subsidies. Indeed, most of the largest MFIs now are commercial firms seeking profit for owners and investors. They raise funds in international financial markets rather than relying on subsidies, and offer a variety of financial products, well beyond just microcredit.

We have seen that commercialized, profit-seeking MFIs charge interest rates that can come down over time as scale and efficiency in competitive markets put downward pressure on prices. Profit-seeking and institutional scaling often lead MFIs to legally transform into regulated institutions, which then face additional shareholder and regulatory pressures to charge less than nonregulated peers. As a result, global microfinance interest rates and fees for client services have fallen steadily as the industry and regulatory systems have matured over the past decades. But not everywhere. Much work remains to fully realize the double bottom line potential of commercial microfinance.