- Bancamía, launched on 14 October 2008, was the first bank in the country dedicated exclusively to offering a wide range of financial products and services to low-income entrepreneurs.
- When the microfinance bank Bancamía S.A. started working on behalf on Colombia’s entrepreneurs it had 170,000 customers, and today serves 680,000.
- In 2014, Bancamía delivered productive loans to 80,000 new customers.
For six years Bancamía has been working to make it easier for low-income Colombians to access financial products and services, and to improve the quality of life of entrepreneurs by providing support for individuals seeking the productive development of their business in order to enable them to generate income.
The bank’s mission is to promote its customers’ economic and social development through Responsible Productive Finance, an effective tool in the fight against poverty. Every year it extends its service channels to reach places where many Colombians have no access to the conventional financial system. This is the reason the bank currently has 184 branch offices in 29 of the 32 departments in the country, from where it serves 680,000 customers in 844 municipalities.
This service is supplemented by a system of its own banking correspondents located in regions where Colombians in rural and urban areas require more immediate financial services. Bancamía is currently setting up alliances with positioned networks that will extend the number of service points in the banking correspondent model to 1,600.
The achievements of these six years are a testimony to a management policy that has yielded excellent results. In 2008, the bank started operating with:
– 170,000 customers, which today have grown to 680,000 (up 300%).
– 70 offices serving 212 municipalities; today there are 180 offices conducting business in over 844 municipalities (a growth of 163%).
– It began with 195,000 loans, and today has 416,000 active loans (up 113%).
– The number of partners has risen from 1,100 to over 3,000 (up 173%).
– In 2008 we made 590 loans every day, and 75 each working hour. Today we make 1,088 loans every day and 136 each working hour (up 84%).
Bancamía works to generate income by offering savings products within reach of low-income Colombians. In 2014, the savings account balance has grown by 15.7%.
According to figures from the Superintendencia Financiera (Financial Superintendency) used to compile an internal financial study, 27.18% of Bancamía’s microcredit holding is with private supervised banks in the country (July 2014). The bank currently has a portfolio of over $1 billion.
Bancamía has also taken steps towards its goal of reaching into rural areas, and today 38% of its customers are in the countryside, with a current holding of $378 billion in that sector. The aim is to continue the search for ways to bring the financial system to this sector, who drive a large part of the economy through their work.
This is a summary of Bancamía’s six years in the service of low-income entrepreneurs and families in Colombia, working to offer opportunities to those who were excluded from the financial system.