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Christine WESTERCAMP
Managing Director |
For
Financial Bank, microcrédit
should be considered by the formal banking sector as
a serious actor who can play a critical role in the
growth of the financial sector.
It is already a daily reality for banks, which lend
to MFI's, manage deposits from informal savings collectors
or work with MFI’s, which disburse loans to their
own clients and have them repaid through banks branches.
The simple evaluation of the number of all microfinance
transactions channelling through banks makes it clearer
that this sector is taking an increasing importance.
We need to be conscious of this reality and find out
solutions to live together with informal and other new
financial institutions. If nothing is made the quality
of services provided to clients both by commercial banks
and MFI's could decrease.
That is why microfinance has been considered as an element
of Financial Bank's strategy in Africa.
FINANCIAL BANK has been the first one
in Benin to propose social loans in 1995 to people who
could not access formal funding from banks to improve
their housing and buy small lands. More than 7,000 people
have been granted such loans over the past 4 years with
a repayment rate close to 100%.
Financial Bank was one of the most
active partners of PADME (Association pour la Promotion
et lappet au Développement de Micro-enterprises):
we refinanced 25% of their loan portfolio and lend our
branches for PADME loan disbursements / repayments (around
8,000 clients).
In addition, the bank is an elected member of PADME
Executive Bureau and considers this role as a critical
one.
Financial recently hired executives with extensive experience
in both bank and microfinance.
As a consequence of its commitment in the funding of
development, Financial Bank has created
FINADEV
in November 1998 as a "desk of microfinance"
(window). A new company has been created in July 2000.
Strategic partners have decided to join: IFC, Dutch
FMO, Lafayette Participations-Horus Banque ET Finances,
European Investment Bank.
Since late 1998 FINADEV
brings banking and sustainable answers to numerous issues
usually met by MFI's: limitation of funding, lack of
innovation in loan management, difficult adjustment
to a riskier and increasing demand, weaknesses of MIS
and governance...
Since its start-up in anonymous enterprise, in july
2001, FINADEV SA
has given access to microcredit to more than 25.000
small borrowers in Benin .
