The Foundation:
productive
finance
BBVA Microfinance Foundation was born in 2007 as a corporate responsibility act taken by the BBVA Group, especially in its social development policy.
The Foundation aims to promote the sustainable and inclusive social and economic development of the most disadvantaged people through Productive Finance.
of disadvantaged people through Productive Finance,
a methodology developed in the Foundation, that has proven
to be the most effective tool in the fight against poverty.
Manuel Méndez del Río Piovich,
President of the BBVA Microfinance Foundation
Individual initiative has been the key to success for 77% of the people who have been able to come out of poverty and for whom financial exclusion has been the main brake.
Productive Finance make progress when it is carried out a productive activity which generates surpluses after covering all real cost incurred, even financial expenses, and this is what represents the basis of saving.
These accumulated surpluses allow people to come out of poverty and make easier the Foundation’s main objective: spreading wealth among the poorest people. This formula is completely away from the social welfare, subsidy, subvention or charity, and it also prevents over indebtedness. This way, we encourage having respect for people’s dignity.
There are around 3,900 millions of poor people in the world. This fact means that almost two out of every three people are poor. Latin America is still the area where the highest social inequality is found, and where stagnation in poverty can be appreciated, as 65% of its adults, that is, 250 millions of people, have no access to financial services. This situation is even worse if we consider the fact that for every poor adult there are two poor children.
According to the World Bank ranking, almost 70% of Latin American population lives in an “economic insecurity” situation. It means that they live in poverty or they have a high probability of falling in poverty. However, poverty is not only a monetary phenomenon, as the activities carried out by these groups not always imply money compensation.
In the Foundation we work with a wide poverty and vulnerability concept to give aid to those people with the lowest resources who can carry out a productive activity.