College junior Jose Palau spent his summer in India and Ecuador helping impoverished people get online.
While many of his classmates dealt in mutual funds and money markets, he worked with one of India's major banks to help set up Internet kiosks in the south of that country.
Palau is just one of a growing number of students spending their summers in banking - but not exactly the kind of banking you might expect.
They are working in microfinance, a blossoming field that is attracting a slew of business students.
Microfinance institutions lend small amounts of money to low-income communities so that they can earn enough to be self-sustained. Interest rates are higher than those on normal loans, but communities - rather than individuals - are held responsible for repaying the microfinance loans.
It's finance for do-gooders - banks make profits from their loans, while the loans help impoverished people live more comfortably.
According to the United Nations Capital Development Fund, the number of people receiving microfinance grants has grown by 30 percent over the last five years.
Microfinance "has the potential to have a big positive impact on the lives of millions of people in developing countries," Finance professor Philip Bond said.
And Wharton students are eager to get in on the action.
Wharton junior Olivier Adler spent last summer as a microfinance intern, working for the international bank Icofin.
"I really believe that microfinancing is the best way to help people out of poverty," Adler said. My co-workers "could see the results of their job on the ground, and that was motivating."
At the same time, Wharton students' extracurricular endeavors are increasingly falling in line with the microfinance trend.
The undergraduate arm of the Microfinance Club, for example, just started last year. It promotes awareness of the field and encourages members to pursue microfinance internships abroad.
For Palau, who helped get the club off the ground, part of the reason he chose to work for a microfinance firm this summer was because it was "an amazing opportunity to help people."
"These firms target a whole market segment that regular financial institutions ignore," Palau added.
But the Microfinance Club isn't the only Wharton organization dedicated to social causes.
Penn International Business Volunteers, for example, sends members to foreign countries.
"I definitely want to do this long-term," said club president and Wharton senior Ryan Cochran, who spent two weeks in Honduras, in part to interview local farmers and uncover the daily problems they faced.
"It is great that students are taking microfinance internships and considering this as a full-time career," Bond said.
