Government officials have been examining Grameen’s books for months, saying that it lacked proper oversight and governance. But Mr. Yunus’s allies have argued that the government is simply trying to discredit a critic. Mr. Yunus, who was awarded the Nobel in 2006, briefly floated a political party in 2007 and had criticized Bangladesh’s politicians as corrupt.

A Norwegian documentary alleged that the bank had improperly transferred $100 million donated by the Norwegian government for housing loans to another nonprofit affiliate of Grameen. A government investigation in Norway confirmed that the money had been improperly moved but said that it was returned to its rightful place and that no money had been stolen or misused.

Bangladesh’s prime minister, Sheik Hasina Wazed, seized on the accusations and in December accused microlenders of “sucking blood from the poor in the name of poverty alleviation.”

A senior financial regulator in Bangladesh, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Bangladesh Bank had notified Grameen and the government that they had to seek the central bank’s permission for Mr. Yunus to remain as managing director. But those notifications were routinely ignored by both Grameen and the government, he said.

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“Someone like him should have been mindful of the legal pitfalls,” the regulator said. “I feel very sorry about it.”

The dispute is all but certain to plunge Grameen into a period of turmoil. In an interview in January, Mr. Yunus said that he wanted to step aside but that his presence was necessary to ensure the bank’s stability. His sudden departure could prompt a run on the bank, he said.

With its 8.3 million borrowers, almost all of them poor women, and $10 billion in loans, Grameen plays an outsize role in Bangladesh’s economic and political life. Its borrowers own more than 95 percent of the bank, and the government owns the rest. Foreign allies of Mr. Yunus have pressed the Bangladeshi government to stop what many see as harassment of a selfless figure who devoted his life to the poor.

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Fellow Nobel laureates, former world leaders and global celebrities have spoken out in support of Mr. Yunus. Mindful of the international attention, a Finance Ministry official said that the government planned to meet on Thursday with representatives of the major foreign embassies and the World Bank in Dhaka to discuss the decision.

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“If people perceive this as politically motivated, it would be a step back for the country in terms of investment policy,” said Ahmed Mushfiq Mobarak, an assistant professor of economics at Yale.

He added that it could also empower politicians to attack microfinance more broadly by encouraging borrowers to default on their debts.

The move against Mr. Yunus comes as microcredit, the idea he helped popularize, has come under increasing scrutiny. Some economists have argued that its effectiveness as a tool to fight poverty is overstated.

In Latin America, lenders have been accused of charging usurious rates, prompting repayment strikes.

In India, government regulators in the state of Andhra Pradesh cracked down on the industry after a spate of suicides that they claimed had been caused by strong-arm collection tactics and overindebtedness by microfinance customers.

“It is certainly a sign of the bad times for the microfinance sector as a whole,” said Vijay Mahajan, who heads Basix, an Indian lender. “In country after country, what was considered a very useful and hopeful thing for poor people — and indeed financially sustainable — is now being reviled as something that is either exploitative or worse.”

Whatever happens to Mr. Yunus, his legacy seems secure, his allies say.

“His contribution to humanity is huge,” Mr. Mahajan said. “He single-handedly proved the veracity of one sentence: The poor are creditworthy.”