Major international banks have traditionally shunned the world's poorest people, but bankers like Annibale are suddenly waking up to the potential of this huge untapped market.

"It's really in many ways about the expansion of access to financial services to all strata of people. There are hundreds and hundreds of millions of people who are very economically active and don't have basic bank services," Annibale, Citigroup's global director for microfinance, told AFP in an interview.

The US banker flew to Halifax from London to participate in the 2006 Global Microcredit Summit being held in Canada this week.

The star guest at the summit is Muhammad Yunus, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in October for his work in tackling poverty in his native Bangladesh by granting tiny loans known as microcredit to people to expand a small business, such as a fruit stand or handicraft stall.

In his book, "Banker to the Poor," Yunus recalls how Bangladeshi bankers laughed at him when he first proposed lending money to the destitute.

Bankers are not laughing anymore. In fact, they are lining up to serve the "unbanked" in the hope that today's poor person will become the prosperous client of tomorrow.

Bankers from Deutsche Bank, ING, and the chief executive of Banco Estado Chile, Jose Manuel Mena Valencia, joined Annibale for a panel discussion Monday on how commercial banks can work in microfinance.

Gera Voorrips, a microfinance specialist with the Dutch bank and insurer ING, told delegates that commercial banks were currently "small players" in microfinance, but said "we should really be more ambitious."

"Everybody should be welcomed as a customer by any bank," Voorrips told microcredit practioners from around the world.

Fed up with conventional bankers, Yunus founded and opened his own bank, the Grameen Bank, in 1983 of which he is the managing director.

Grameen has made tiny loans, which now average 100 dollars, to 6.6 million poor, mainly women borrowers who require no collateral.

However, it is Grameen's repayment success that has caught the attention of Citigroup and other commercial banks. The loan recovery rate is almost 99 percent, despite interest rates up to 20 percent.

Grameen has loaned 5.7 billion dollars to date, of which 5.1 billion has been repaid.

Citigroup, which earns that sum in just one quarter, believes it can leverage its expertise with microfinance institutions to build a future client base.

The US bank and its Mexican unit Banamex have raised over 70 million dollars in capital markets in recent years for Compartamos, the biggest microfinance lender in Latin America.

"They've got very good repayment histories. There's a very underserved population that should be served by the financial sector. Financial inclusion makes sense," Annibale says.

Citigroup is joining microfinance initiatives in Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Peru and Romania among other places.

Annibale's former boss at Citigroup, Shaukat Aziz, addressed the summit Sunday with a strong message of support in his new role as Pakistan's prime minister.

Jayshree Vyas, a trustee of the Indian School of Microfinance for Women, who travelled from Ahmedabad, India, lauded Citigroup's efforts.

"Citigroup has supported us, funded the whole effort. So we have been providing training to small microfinance organizations ... helping women to learn to manage their own money," she said.

Banks are also looking at these clinets for other financial services.

Citigroup is launching a new savings plan for microsavers in India that can be opened with minimum documentation and accessed through biometric teller machines in offices of microcredit groups.

Banks say these programs must be commercially viable, but as Yunus underlines, the numbers are too tempting for banks to ignore.

"About two-thirds of the world's population has no access to conventional banks. We want to break that line and make banking inclusive," Yunus said Monday.