Highlighting DFC’s support for small business during Global Entrepreneurship Week
Small businesses are the foundation of most economies and a key source of innovation, jobs, and economic growth. Yet a large share of entrepreneurs, and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the developing world cannot access the financial services they need to sustain and grow their operations.
As Global Entrepreneurship Week highlights the contributions of entrepreneurs around the world, DFC recognizes its own progress supporting the small businesses that drive economic growth. DFC’s Fiscal Year 2024 investments are projected to help 380,000 micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) in the developing world access the financing and training they need to support their families and communities, and contribute to broader economic growth.
DFC’s Fiscal Year 2024 investments are projected to help 380,000 micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) in the developing world.
This latest progress builds on DFC’s longstanding support for the individuals and small businesses that produce food, deliver healthcare, and provide other critical goods and services while also creating jobs and opportunity. More than 30 percent of the world’s MSMEs are credit constrained, which limits their economic productivity and job creation. By partnering with local banks in the developing world, DFC helps support more lending to these businesses.
As DFC’s portfolio of financial services investments grows, it is beginning to track the significant impact of these transactions. Three years earlier, DFC committed a $150 million loan to Ecuador’s Banco de la Producción S.A. (Produbanco) to support lending to SMEs and to expand the bank’s capacity for digital lending to reach remote communities and those isolated during the pandemic.
More recent impact data gathered from Produbanco illustrates the impact of this financing. The bank reports that it now opens an average of 770 new accounts for SMEs each month and that the value of its SME lending portfolio increased 22 percent to approximately $550 million. The bank is also piloting a streamlined credit program for borrowers seeking loans of less than $10,000 for working capital.
