| IN BOLIVIA 1 |
| 16th March 2001 - Practices in Bolivia Meeting with Leyda Torres and Claudia Marica - Bancosol - Santa Cruz The mission of Bancosol Bancosol offers financial services to micro-businesses (handicraft, shops, self employed people). In 1999, it had 73073 clients an d about twice as many nowadays. Its portfolio reaches US$ 82 073. 90% of the loans are social loans. The increasing other 10% are mortgage loans, consuming loans...The diversification of the services implies a diversification of the clients. Thus 70% of the clients were women at the beginning of Bancosol. A lot of them wanted to create a business out an informal activity. They represent now only 50% of the Bancosol clients. At the opposite of the other experiences we met during our trip, Bancosol is a major player int the Bolivian banking sector wth 33 agencies covering the whole country and 550 employees. In Santa Cruz only, there are 8 agencies in the city and 3 agencies in the country side and 135 employees. Bancosol was created in 1992 by Prodem, a Bolivian NGO, with the support of foreign investments. Prodem created Bancosol to make its micro-credit activties self-sufficient. At the beginning, Bancosol used the group lending scheme of Prodem, with 5 persons collectively responsible for the individual repayments. In 1998, victim of its success, Bancosol has seen some of its clients leaving to classical banks that were all devlopping micro-credit activities, but without the constraint of the goup lending scheme. In reaction, Bancosol decided to offer its services to all the Bolivian population and to diversify its offer to meet its clients new needs. The latest, reaching a critical scale thanks to the social loans, wanted more classical financial services. After beeing a pioner in Bolivia and giving an access to credit to thousands of people, Bancosol is now trying to meet its market new needs. How does Bancosol work? The micro-entrepreneurs know Bancosol through clients of Bancosol. Bancosol focuses its activities on self-employed people whose business improves the household revenues, works with other micro-entrepreneurs and who have already some experience in business creation. Bancosol analysis both financial aspects and people skills. Some clients have already been financed by other banks (mainly co-operative banks). The credits are personalised in their amount, ther reimbursment scheme and type (social loans, consuming loans, mortgage loans). BAncosol has a goord reimbursment rate, particularly, because of the weekly reimbursment scheme which meets well the micro-businesses activities and thus suits better the micro-entrepreneurs. The interest of the credit are the same as the other banks for the same services, except for the social loan which is lowert than any other. The non-social loans help Bancosol to be sel-sufficient by compensating the potential losses on social loans. According to Claudia and Leyda, Bancosol differences itself from the other banks by : - providing personalised services - using group lending schemes - educating its employees and clients about solidarity and business creation |