FAQs
FINCA designs and accelerates innovative solutions for ending poverty. Since our founding in 1984, we have evolved from a microfinance pioneer into a leader in financial inclusion and innovation, combining inclusive financial services, impact investing, and customer research to empower people around the world to build their own pathways to a more prosperous and resilient future.
The word finca means farm or farmhouse in Spanish, a reflection of our origins in supporting farmers and rural communities in Latin America. Our founders chose the name FINCA as an acronym of Foundation for International Community Assistance; however, our legal name has been FINCA since 1989, and that is how we are known today.
Village Banking is a community-based approach to credit pioneered by FINCA. It brings together small groups of low-income entrepreneurs who meet regularly to access self-employment loans for starting or growing a business. Because members often lack traditional collateral, they guarantee each other’s loans and operate as a democratic organization: electing leaders, setting bylaws, keeping records, managing funds, and ensuring repayment. Beyond finance, Village Banking fosters mutual support and shared responsibility, creating both economic opportunity and social cohesion. In 2025, FINCA managed over 65,000 group loans.
FINCA directly serves and supports over 14 million people who are brimming with potential but living with constant risk. Our customers include smallholder farmers working to grow their income and withstand climate shocks, families on the margins seeking stability and education for their children, and microbusiness owners who need access to financial services to expand their enterprises.
FINCA was founded on the belief that all people should have the opportunity to leverage their wisdom, talent, and effort to determine their own destiny. When people can’t save, borrow, or invest in their businesses, they remain trapped in cycles of vulnerability. Financial inclusion gives people the tools to grow their income, withstand shocks, and pay for education, creating a foundation for long-term resilience and progress.
Many people living in poverty have seasonal, irregular, and unpredictable income streams, making traditional banking products — designed for steady cash flows and traditional collateral — unworkable. FINCA conducts over 30,000 customer surveys annually to understand our customers’ challenges and the systemic barriers they face, then we design, test, and scale products that fit their individual realities, leveraging technology to better meet our customers’ needs and scale our solutions to reach millions more people.
FINCA International is a global not-for-profit organization committed to creating pathways out of poverty through sustainable, scalable solutions rooted in the needs of the people it serves. Operating in some of the world’s most challenging markets, FINCA provides financial and non-financial tools that help individuals and communities build resilience, generate income, and invest in their children’s education.
FINCA Impact Finance is an international network of community-based banks and microfinance institutions that provide responsible and impactful financial services to customers traditionally excluded from the formal financial system. The FINCA Impact Finance network operates 13 subsidiaries in Africa, Eurasia, and Central America, and delivers a double bottom line of social impact and financial sustainability. The not-for-profit company FINCA International is the majority shareholder of FINCA Impact Finance.
FINCA Ventures is an impact investing initiative of FINCA International. It makes catalytic investments in early-stage companies across Sub-Saharan Africa in high-impact sectors such as Water, Sanitation & Hygiene (WASH), energy access, agriculture, healthcare, and financial inclusion that are building economic and social resilience in their local communities.
Every year, FINCA Ventures hosts the FINCA Ventures Prize Competition to identify and support founders whose products, technologies, or business models can deliver meaningful outcomes in underserved populations in Sub-Saharan Africa. The Prize Competition provides catalytic funding, mentorship, and exposure to help Africa-based entrepreneurs overcome the chronic scarcity of early-stage capital.
FINCA International’s Poverty Eradication Lab discovers, tests, and scales creative and sustainable solutions that help people break the cycle of poverty. The Lab leverages human-centered design (HCD) as well as the work that we do across FINCA — our research, our financial services network, our customer base, and our partnerships with FINCA Ventures investee companies — to rapidly prototype and deliver practical solutions that work, where and when they’re needed most.
FINCA is developing a first-of-its-kind technology platform, 361 by FINCA, to provide inclusive financial institutions with modern banking-grade technology at an affordable cost, allowing them to tailor financial solutions to customers’ unique needs, while strengthening operating efficiency to be able to lower costs to the customer and allow scale.
For fiscal year 2022, 97 percent of every dollar spent by FINCA went to support our programs, 2 percent went to administrative expenses and 1 percent went to fundraising.
FINCA International is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit corporation registered in the State of New York. For the 2024 fiscal year, 85% of our operating revenue came from program and interest income, 8% came from cash grants and donations, 4% came from fees and other program income, 1% came from service and gifts in kind, and 1% came from grants and contracts, including the federal government. We receive donations from a variety of sources, including private foundations, corporations, service and religious organizations, and individual donors.
For the 2024 fiscal year, 97% percent of every dollar spent by FINCA went to support our program services, 2% went to fundraising, and 1% went to general and administrative expenses.
FINCA charges interest to ensure we can sustainably deliver financial services to people who need them most. Interest covers the cost of operating in remote and underserved areas, supporting our staff, and maintaining technology that makes access possible. It also enables us to source funding so we can reach more low-income families and small businesses and remain a reliable partner.
Before lending, we provide financial education to help our customers understand our rates and how borrowing can strengthen their business. Interest rates vary by country and depend on factors such as local regulations, loan size and type, and the cost of funds.