Source: Inter-American Development Bank (IDB)

Original press release available in English and in Spanish.

December 4 – The Inter-American Development Bank’s (IDB’s) Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF) today announced a USD 1 million grant for a project to expand a groundbreaking microfinance model backed by Mexico’s leading baking company, Grupo Bimbo, and a local microfinance institution, FinComun.

The project will take to a national scale a pilot experience carried out by FinComun and Grupo Bimbo to offer microcredit to members of the baking company’s distribution network, which includes more than 450,000 small store operators in Mexico.

The project is also one of the first launched by the MIF under the IDB’s Opportunities for the Majority initiative, which promotes and finances business partnerships and innovations designed to help improve living and working conditions of low-income communities in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The MIF grant will help FinComun improve its operations to serve more shopkeepers in Grupo Bimbo’s distribution network, offering them new products and services, including microloans to modernize their stores or improve their homes and life, health and education insurance coverage.

The project will also launch a pilot to train shopkeepers as FinComun correspondents, enabling them to sell insurance policies, collect payments on small loans and provide information to potential microfinance clients.

The MIF, an autonomous fund administered by the IDB, hopes this project will inspire other leading Latin American and Caribbean companies to promote microfinance through their distribution networks. Part of the grant will be earmarked for international internships at FinComun and for the evaluation and dissemination of its microfinance model.