and a lower level of risk in failing to repay them. Unintended consequences of microfinance include informal intermediaton: That is, some entrepreneurial borrowers become informal intermediaries between microfinance initiatives and poorer micro-entrepreneurs. Those who more easily qualify for microfinance split loans into smaller credit to even poorer borrowers. Informal intermediation ranges from casual intermediaries at the good or benign end of the spectrum to 'loan sharks' at the professional and sometimes criminal end of the spectrum. Competition and market saturation Microcredit has also received criticism for inducing market saturation and fueling problematically competitive, rather than collaborative business communities. The influx of supply generated by the creation of new microcredit-fueled-businesses can be difficult for small economies to absorb. The owners of micro-enterprises within such communities often have limited skill sets and resources available. This can cause a "copycat" phenomenon among small business due to the limited variation in products and services offerings. The high number of individuals selling similar products and services can cause new entrepreneurs to be subject to cutthroat competition over a demand that has not expanded proportionally with the supply. Mission drift in microfinance Mission drift refers to the phenomena through which the MFIs or the micro finance institutions increasingly try to cater to customers who are better off than their original customers, primarily the poor families. Roy Mersland and R. Øystein Strøm in their research on mission drift suggest that this selection bias can come not only through an increase in the average loan size, which allows for financially stronger individuals to get the loans, but also through the MFI's particular lending methodology, main market of operation, or even the gender bias as further mission drift measures. And as it may follow, this selective funding would lead to lower risks and lower costs for the firm. However, economists Beatriz Armendáriz and Ariane Szafarz suggests that this phenomenon is not driven by cost minimization alone. She suggests that it happens because of the interplay between the company's mission, the cost differential between poor and unbanked wealthier clients and region specific characteristics pertaining the heterogeneity of their clientele. But in either way, this problem of selective funding leads to an ethical tradeoff where on one hand there is an economic reason for the company to restrict its loans to only the individuals who qualify the standards, and on the other hand there is an ethical responsibility to help the