International banker Mr Jacques Attali is launching a new organisation to promote the use of the Internet to help bring credit to the world's poorest areas.
PlaNetBank will start life as a non-government organisation funded by grants to help micro-finance organisations "develop . . . by better using new technology," said Mr Attali, former head of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
He was speaking this week during a UN Conference for Trade and Development Conference in Lyon focused on ways to ensure the world's poorest countries have access to the benefits of globalisation, notably by boosting private sector investment.
PlaNetBank will offer loans of $20,000 to $200,000 (£135,000) to micro-finance institutions to help them provide more loans for projects in the world's poorest areas, such as credits enabling someone to set up a one-man business, Mr Attali said.
His project would also offer an Internet library which could, for instance, allow a micro-finance institution in the Philippines learn how a similar institution in Africa had set up a loan system for a city's poorest shantytown, Mr Attali said.
