The Grameen Bank was started 1976 when Professor Muhammad Yunus , a Fulbright scholar and Professor at University of Chittagong , researched how to provide banking for the rural poor . The origin of Grameen Bank can be traced back to 1976 when Professor Muhammad Yunus , a Fulbright scholar at Vanderbilt University and Professor at University of Chittagong , launched a research project to examine the possibility of designing a credit delivery system to provide banking services targeted to the rural poor .