When it comes to savings, no amount is too small.Microsaving is a growing partof the international movement of microfinance.The aim is to bring financial services to poor people.Modern microfinance startedwith Nobel Prize-winning economistMuhammad Yunus in Bangladesh.In the nineteen seventies,he started small loan programsthat would become the Grameen Bank.Currently, microcredit providersare in over one hundred countries.Now, microfinance institutions are starting to offer other services,including savings plans.Recently, the non-profit groupSmall Enterprise Education and Promotionheld a conference in Washington.SEEP works with over one hundred twenty groupsaround the world in efforts to cut poverty.It does this by supporting small businesses.The goal is help microfinance industry experts share ideas.One idea is called Financial Access at Birth, or FAB.It is designed to start each person with a financial citizenship at birththrough a savings account connected to a bank deposit.Rosita Najmi is FAB's program director.ROSITA NAJMI: "FAB starts with financial inclusion,but it creates other opportunities of inclusionacross other sectors of health or educationand I think that's what the internationaldevelopment community needs (and seeks at this time)."Mobile or wireless technology will be importantto many microfinance services.One meeting at the SEEP conferenceexamined a mobile phone application for saving money.Debbie Dean of the Grameen Foundation says these effortscan also be extended to other financial services.DEBBIE DEAN: "It's probably going to be a combinationof savings programs and money transfer programs,payment systems that all kind of converge togetherto be able to provide the customerwith the most flexibility and the most convenienceto meet their needs."But offering savings, payments and other servicesrequires more training and controls.Rashid Bajwa leads Pakistan's largestmicrofinance organization.He says more training is needed.RASHID BAJWA: "When microfinance institutionsstart offering savings,then they have to be trained to do that.This is a specializationwhich needs specialized people to adopt.You have to have a risk management system in place,you have to have an internal audit system in place,you have to have a huge set of new thingswhich you generally don't needwhen you are just doing microcredit."Small savings deposits add up.And interest over time makes them grow.This can have a surprising effectfor savers and societies.Rashid Bajwa puts it this way.He says the amount of moneythat poor people have is unimaginable.And that's the Economics Report in VOA Special English.And I'm Mario Ritter.