ASA began in 1979 geared for empowering the oppressed through "peoples organizations" mobilized for social action against exploitation and through legal aid to fight social injustice. In 1984, ASA saw a shift in focus to the basic social unit - the family - recognizing the critical role women must play in development. In the late 80s, ASA began to incorporate management skills for income generating projects and stressed the importance of savings in development education efforts. At this point, concentration on credit delivery came as a quite natural extension of its success with its development education to the rural poor women in Bangladesh. ASA was able to tailor a credit delivery model to the needs and desires of several thousand women anxious to escape the poverty cycle.

The simplicity of the "ASA Sustainable Financial Services Model" allows for rapid replication that can be adapted to meet a variety of circumstances. Since its focus on financial services in 1991, ASA has been growing it's operational branches, staffs and members throughout Bangladesh with loan disbursement, savings mobilization along with health & insurance facilities. Over 15 million people are benefiting from the microfinance services offered by ASA directly and indirectly. Always ASA's loan recovery rate above 99%. ASA is on target to quadruple outreach providing credit and/or savings/insurance services to over 3 million poor women.

The "Branch Office" is the basic element of ASA Model at the field level for the formation of groups of poor landless women. One branch comprises 60-120 groups (1200-3000 members). Each branch has one Branch Manager (BM) and four/five Loan Officers (LOs). LOs are responsible for working with the groups disbursing loans, collecting savings, and recording transactions. BM supervises the LOs making sure groups are functioning properly, and that branch finances are in order. Above BM is the District Officer (DO). 3-6 DOs are under the direct supervision of District Manager (DM) who serves as the communication link between 20-40 branches and the Central Office, summarizing financial reports of the branch offices for effective fund management at the institutional level.