Microfinance is an emerging important financial subsector in Asian transition countries. Its role is to improve financial access of the poor and small economic players and thus help them to build assets, which means a contribution to poverty alleviation. This paper provides an overview of rural finance and microfinance development in transition countries in Southeast and East Asia--Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Vietnam, and Mongolia--focusing on the institutional evolution and the interrelation between policies and institutions. We find diverse potentials that formal and semiformal financial institutions have to reach out to the rural poor of respective nations.