Abstract
Microfinance has come to be seen as the “magic bullet” to alleviate poverty across the world. Focus has been on scaling up “successful” models within, and beyond, singular cultural settings. We explore why different stakeholder groups perceived the same microfinance model as successful in India, yet less successful in South Africa. The study is an explorative case study, combining the literature on social capital and contextualization, and suggests that historical, socioeconomic, and legislative antecedents to social capital in India are different in South Africa, thus resulting in a lower perception of microfinance success in South Africa. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.