At FINCA, we have the steadfast goal of eradicating poverty in our lifetime. As we head into 2025 and our 40th year of operations, we are excited to continue to make progress on our great ambition. Over the last year, we laid the groundwork to prepare us for some of our biggest innovations to date and we are so excited for what this upcoming year has in store.
Building Financial Resilience in 2025
Last year, across our financial subsidiary operations, FINCA continued to expand and improve our digital and call center solutions and banking agent networks, making it easier than ever for our 3 million customers to access responsible financial tools no matter where they live. In 2025, we will continue to expand our financial products and services and improve how we deliver them to better support our customers in growing their financial health and improving their resilience.
What makes FINCA unique is our holistic approach to eradicating poverty. Not only do we provide people with personal loans and savings, we also offer training and coaching to support people in building prosperous communities.
For example, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, we worked with indigenous communities on sustainable farming practices that both increase income and crop production while also preserving the forest. Meanwhile, FINCA Malawi launched a preferred-rate loan product so customers can purchase clean energy cooking stoves. These gas stoves are cheaper to operate and generate much less harmful smoke than traditional three-stone fires. In addition, children and women, freed from the time-consuming task of collecting firewood, have more time for school and work.
In East Africa, we expanded our product offerings to include insurance. FINCA Uganda secured a new bancassurance license in October that will allow our clients in Uganda access to affordable life, health, and property insurance for the first time beginning in 2025. Additionally, FINCA Tajikistan’s Women’s Club offered nearly 9,000 women free financial and skills training and networking opportunities last year.
Investing in Social Impact
We also grew our investment portfolio in 2024 to include three new social enterprises that deliver essential services to the people who need them the most. FINCA makes catalytic investments in entrepreneurs who prioritize social impact over profit. Our most recent investments include: Releaf, Affinity Africa, and Fluid Finance.
Releaf’s proprietary hardware and software makes food processing more efficient and accessible to smallholder farmers in Nigeria. Affinity Africa provides digitally driven banking products to un- and underbanked people in Ghana. And Fluid Finance makes it easier for smallholder farmers in Ghana to access credit through cashless input loans and a digital loan management system.
In April 2024, we held our first FINCA Ventures Prize competition and awarded $400,000 in grant funding to four winning social enterprises. Twelve agriculture and health companies operating in sub-Saharan Africa traveled to Washington, DC to pitch. The 2024 winners include: Kazi Yetu, Bena Care, Rio Fish and Neopenda. With support from the FINCA Ventures Prize grant funding, the winners plan to scale their enterprises to support more low-income people in their local communities.
Leveraging AI to Understand Our Impact
At FINCA, measuring impact is fundamental to our work. And hearing directly from our customers about what they need is imperative to measuring that impact. FINCA’s research team conducted thousands of surveys in 2024 to learn what customers need and how they are using FINCA’s services.
In 2024, we also made tremendous strides in advancing our customer research capabilities through the development of AuRA, our Automated Research Assistant. With support from Amazon Web Services, FINCA is harnessing generative AI to conduct evidence-based customer research and create new ways to help us understand the root of our customers’ challenges. In 2025, we are excited to further explore the potential that AuRA can bring to our research function and to further lift our customers’ voices.
Reflecting on 2024, Planning for 2025
As we reflect on the last year, we recognize the tremendous amount of work we have done to help our clients improve their livelihoods, strengthen their resilience, and provide their children with an education — the three critical areas our clients have identified matter the most. And as we look ahead, we also acknowledge the amount of work that is left to be done to achieve our goal of eradicating poverty. Through partnership, ingenuity, and collaboration, we believe that a future without poverty is possible. We look forward to the challenge and opportunity 2025 holds.
