Activity Description: Swayam Krishi Sangam is a microfinance organization working through a community-owned grameen (village) banking program that provides poor women with loans for both income-generating activities as well as for emergencies. Through a grant from the Consultative Group, SKS has begun an initiative to introduce smart cards and hand-held computers at the village level. The Smart Card Project will revolutionize microfinance by overcoming a major problem for microfinance institutions (MFIs) - the high cost of delivering financial services to the doorstep of the poor. It will do so by using smart cards to reduce the time of weekly village meetings, thereby significantly increasing the efficiency of field staff, lowering costs of delivery, and enabling MFIs that target the poor to more quickly reach financial viability. All information is entered and stored on the hand-held, where it is easily uploaded to the branch computer.