What is financial inclusion?
What is microfinance?
What is Village Banking™?
What is the average loan size of a FINCA loan?
How do FINCA clients use their loans?
What is a “social enterprise?”
What is FINCA Impact Finance?
Why does FINCA charge interest on their loans?
Who funds FINCA International?
What percentage of FINCA expenditures is spent on programs?
Why isn’t FINCA listed with Charity Navigator?
What is financial inclusion?
According to the World Bank, “Financial inclusion means that individuals and businesses have access to useful and affordable financial products and services that meet their needs—transactions, payments, savings, credit and insurance—delivered in a responsible and sustainable way.” FINCA is leading the way in expanding financial inclusion in underserved, low-income communities by providing access to credit, savings accounts, transfer services and insurance that allows people to be more productive in their small businesses and to have more control over their livelihoods and lives. According to the 2017 Global Findex, 1.7 billion people globally remain financially excluded.
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What is microfinance?
Microfinance is the provision of financial services to poor or low-income people on terms that they can afford. It is a means of promoting financial inclusion.
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What is Village Banking™?
Village Banking™ is a methodology for delivering credit that FINCA International pioneered. It entails groups of 10-20 low-income entrepreneurs who meet weekly, biweekly or monthly to provide themselves with self-employment loans as small as $50 or $100 to start or expand a business while enjoying camaraderie and mutual support for business development. Since low-income entrepreneurs don’t have the kind of collateral most commercial banks require, Village Banking™ group members guarantee each others’ loans. And they run a democratic organization, electing their own leaders, designing their own bylaws, keeping the books, managing funds, supervising loan repayments and enforcing penalties for non-compliance.
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What is the average loan size of a FINCA loan?
FINCA’s average loan size is $1,141.
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How do FINCA clients use their loans?
FINCA clients use their loans for a multitude of reasons. When poor people have access to financial services, like small loans, they can earn more, build their assets and cushion themselves against external shocks. For example, they can invest that money to make their labor far more productive. They might buy a used sewing machine to make dresses faster than sewing by hand. They might invest in a used refrigerator to keep the food they sell from going bad overnight. They might buy weaving thread in bulk at wholesale prices to increase their profit margin on every item. Or they may use their loans to pay for employees’ salaries.
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What is a “social enterprise?”
FINCA defines a social enterprise as a revenue-generating business that provides goods or services intended to achieve positive social, community, economic and/or environmental outcomes that align with FINCA’s charitable mission. According to the Social Enterprise Alliance, “a social enterprise is an organization that addresses a basic unmet need or solves a social or environmental problem through a market-driven approach.”
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What is FINCA Impact Finance?
FINCA Impact Finance’s network of 20 community-based microfinance institutions and banks offers responsible and impactful financial services to low-income clients. With 30 years of experience and a mostly local staff of over 10,000, FINCA Impact Finance delivers a double bottom line of social impact and financial sustainability.
With its Headquarters in Washington, DC and 20 subsidiaries in Africa, Eurasia, Latin America and Caribbean, and the Middle East and South Asia and working in some of the most challenging markets in the world, FINCA Impact Finance’s geographic reach is among the widest of the leading responsible finance networks.
The majority owner of the FINCA Impact Finance network is FINCA International, a not-for-profit organization. FINCA International is joined by socially minded minority shareholders.
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Why does FINCA charge interest on their loans?
FINCA charges interest in order to cover its costs and achieve operational sustainability. The interest charged on our loans is used to support our staff and technology in the field, allowing us to bring services to customers even in remote areas; and to enable us to source funding, so we can reach many more low-income people and remain a reliable resource for our customers. Before we lend to customers, we provide financial training that ensures our clients understand not only our rates, but what it will mean for them and their business to invest and repay a loan. Interest rates vary greatly around the world and reflect a variety of factors, such as local regulations, the type and size of the loan, prevailing inflation rates and local costs of borrowing.
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Who funds FINCA International?
FINCA International is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit corporation registered in the State of New York. Our revenue comes from the microfinance operations of the FINCA Impact Finance Network as well as from grants and donations, all of which are used to fund our work.
Donated funding comes from a variety of sources, including U.S. and international governmental development agencies, private foundations, corporations, service and religious organizations, and individual donors.
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What percentage of FINCA expenditures is spent on programs?
For fiscal year 2017, 96 percent of every dollar spent by FINCA went to support our programs, 3 percent went to administrative expenses and 1 percent went to fundraising.
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Why isn’t FINCA International listed with Charity Navigator?
For seven consecutive years, Charity Navigator rated FINCA International as one of the most efficient and effective charities in operation, placing us in the top 1 percent of rated charities. But with FINCA’s transition to a new business model in 2011, Charity Navigator’s evaluation methods no longer provided an accurate assessment of our operations and impact.
Charity Navigator only considers information reported on United States IRS Form 990, thus, it fails to take into account FINCA International’s consolidated financial statements, which represent our international network of 20 subsidiaries. Charity Navigator has acknowledged that their current evaluation model is not designed to evaluate the specifics of FINCA’s unique business model. Therefore, FINCA International and Charity Navigator mutually agreed that FINCA should delist from the ranking service.
To read the letter that Charity Navigator sent FINCA regarding the de-listing, click here.
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