reach out to the highest possible number of people.
It has already invested €58.5m in developing the
network, which is already present in Colombia,
Peru, Puerto Rico and Costa Rica.
In Colombia, the foundation set up the Banco de
las Microfinanzas Bancamía, a result of the merger
and transformation of the world women’s
corporations Corporación Mundial de la Mujer de
Bogotá and Corporación Mundial de la Mujer de
Medellín. Bancamía is the country’s first microfinance
bank dedicated exclusively to providing products and
services designed for low-income entrepreneurs.
In Peru, it acquired Edpyme Crear Tacna, which
it subsequently merged with Caja Nor Perú and
Caja del Sur to incorporate a new institution: Caja
de Ahorro y Crédito Nuestra Gente, whose remit is
to steadily increase its social penetration and rural
presence in those areas where microfinance has
little impact due to the limitations imposed by the
lack of road and communications infrastructures
and which therefore generate huge costs in services.
Finally, the foundation also set up the
Corporación para las Microfinanzas-Puerto Rico,
a completely new institution created in partnership
with the Banco de Desarrollo Económico para
Puerto Rico, being the island’s first dedicated solely
to microfinance. The corporation, which will be
up and running in 2009, will have an original
knowledge model and develop new approach
channels, with innovative products and services
specially designed for low-income people.
Through these institutions, the BBVA
Microfinance Foundation caters for 346,758
customers in Latin America (60% of whom are
women), with 1,700 employees, a network of 160
branch offices, and a total volume of microloans
amounting to $287m.
The foundation is also present in Costa Rica,
where it signed an agreement with the state bank
Bancrédito with a view to driving the microfinance
business in this country, as well as throughout the
rest of Central America.
In order to supplement its core business, the
foundation undertakes schemes to boost the
development of the microfinance sector within the
fields of education, technological innovation, the
dissemination of information and knowledge, and
best practices in corporate governance, which will
help to create a more favourable environment for
it. To do so, the foundation subscribes alliances
with institutions that share a common mission.
Pledged to supporting the sector’s development
and overcoming the obstacles facing microfinance
institutions, the foundation signed a master
agreement on cooperation with Spain’s Open
University, UNED, which will lead to the
organisation of schemes for training credit officers
specialising in microfinance, in cooperation with
local universities in Latin America.
Along these same lines, the foundation also
entered into a partnership agreement with the
Organization of Iberoamerican States for
Education, Science and Culture, with a view to
training for and encouraging self-employment
amongst people suffering from poverty in Colombia
and Chile. In addition, an agreement has been
signed with the International Finance Corporation
(IFC) for the development of a programme of joint
investments in microfinance institutions, which is to
be implemented over the coming business year.
Elsewhere, and in cooperation with Accenture,
2008 has witnessed the drafting of the “Code of
Corporate Governance for the Microfinance
Institutions Network”, providing a series of rules
and standards for the good governance of the
institutions, furnishing the network with a
common culture and uniform framework.
The foundation has also enlarged its Board
of Trustees in 2008 through the incorporation of
personalities of acknowledged prestige and
extensive experience in the fields of economics,
finances and social development: Gonzalo Gil,
former deputy governor of the Bank of Spain and
an expert in regulatory and supervisory matters;
Nancy Barry, former president and CEO of
Women’s World Banking and considered by Forbes
magazine to be one of the twenty most influential
women in the United States; and Claudio González
Vega, Professor at Ohio State University, known as
“the father of microfinance”.
These important figures join the other members
that were already sitting on the Board in 2007:
Manuel Méndez del Río, as Chair; Tomás Alfaro,
Head of Business Administration and Management
at the Francisco de Vitoria University; and Susana
Rodríguez Vidarte, Dean of the Faculty of
Economic and Business Sciences (otherwise known
as La Comercial), at the University of Deusto.
The BBVA Microfinance Foundation is
independent of the Group in terms of both
FINANCIAL INCLUSION
Corporate Responsibility Report 2008
27
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