Financiera Confianza has succeeded in helping 27% of its underprivileged customers rise out of poverty

6 November 2014
Financiera Confianza

Financiera Confianza is a leading company in the microfinance sector with half a million customers and a wide network of agencies in the 24 regions of Peru. It has a system for measuring the social impact of its work, which reveals that in 2013 its customers’ sales were up 16%, surpluses from their businesses rose by 17%, and 27% of its total customers who were below the poverty threshold succeeded in rising out of poverty. In 2013, it served 84,406 new customers.

Martín Naranjo Landerer, general manager of Financiera Confianza, highlighted the institution’s work in favor of the least advantaged.

The bank also has the largest network with a rural scope in the country, and in the last year alone it has enabled 41,290 of its customers to obtain their very first loan within the formal financial system.

During the presentation of the bank’s new graphic identity in Lima, Martín Naranjo Landerer, the general manager, highlighted the vocation that drives the bank to achieve its goal: helping people with low incomes to attain sustainable development through Responsible Productive Finance.

“We are a finance company that pursues a social and human goal, namely to help disadvantaged people to achieve sustainable development through our methodology of Responsible Finance for productive activities. It is not a matter of selling financial products, but of understanding our customers, working closely together with them and designing our products to meet their needs”, said Martín Naranjo.

The former Director of Banking, Insurance and PFA added that this was the reason Financiera Confianza’s signature products are designed to reach the base of the pyramid and serve rural areas. A clear example is the program Palabra de Mujer (A Woman’s Word), which is a loan aimed at women by Financiera Confianza so that as a group they can develop an enterprise, with assistance from the bank’s advisers.

“We measure our success by the impact on our customers. Palabra de mujer is a good example of what we want to achieve, providing access to credit and opportunities for development for people who cannot do so within the traditional financial system. We’re convinced that the only way to eradicate poverty once and for all is through sustainable development, and that’s our goal with our Responsible Productive Finance”, he said.

This methodology involves a responsible credit assessment and the condition that its customers’ business must generate surpluses. Financiera Confianza’s portfolio has one of the highest quality indicators in the Peruvian microfinance system.