Microfinance at Mercy Corps

Offering financial services to people not served by traditional banks and lending institutions has been called "a weapon against poverty and hunger" by the United Nations and recognized as a strategy for peace by the Norwegian Nobel Committee. Microcredit pioneer Mohammed Yunus and Bangladesh's Grameen Bank won the 2006 Peace Prize for successful efforts "to create economic and social development from below."

Mercy Corps realizes that secure, just, productive communities cannot be realized or sustained without plentiful economic opportunities. Extending credit, offering competitive-rate loans and providing other financial services are all ways to address the economic needs of the poor.

Mercy Corps-sponsored microfinance institutions, savings and credit cooperatives, loan guarantee programs, and meso-level institutions reach more than 1 million people in over a dozen countries by offering creative, tailored solutions to the needs of poor and marginalized people in some of the world's most challenging environments. These self-sustaining institutions can draw on large pools of investment capital, enabling them to grow and meet the needs of the large "unbanked" and "underbanked" populations.

Learn more in this Q&A with Pam Eser, Mercy Corps' director of microenterprise and economic development.

Mercy Corps Microfinance Network
(Microfinance Institutions, Organizations and Programs)
as of June 2008

Financial Institution	Methodology	Avg Disbursed Loan Size	Portfolio Outstanding	Active Number of Borrowers	Portfolio at Risk (30+ days)
Partner Microcredit Foundation (Partner), Bosnia	Individual	$2,643	$148.1 million	59,682	1.02%
Agency for Finance in Kosovo (AFK), Kosovo	Individual	$4,680	$9.2 million	2,726	3.51%
Asian Credit Fund (ACF), Kazakhstan	Individual	$8,002	$4.6 million	989	9.00%
Kompanion Financial Group, Kyrgyzstan	Individual, Group	$588	$28.9 million	59,884	0.05%
IMON International, Tajikistan	Individual, Group	$562	$23.4 million	25,248	0.30%
Borshud, Tajikistan	Individual, Group	$1,105	$1.1 million	2,139	0.00%
Ariana Financial Services (AFS), Afghanistan	Group	$274	$2.8 million	10,465	1.60%
China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation (CFPA), China	Group	$369	$14.4 million	28,093	0.51%
Poverty Alleviation in the Tumen River Area (PATRA), China	Group	$476	$897,000	1,691	0.00%
XacBank, Mongolia	Individual	$964	$117.9 million	60,092	0.80%
Community Health and Micro-credit Project, Guatemala	Individual, Group	$169	$40,000	330	0.00%
Mercy Corps Northwest, Oregon and Washington State, USA	Individual	$9,344	$502,000	54	N.A.