MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: Agence Française de Développement (AFD) Loans $13.6m to NamPost for Microfinance Lending to Pensioners in Namibia

Agence Française de Développement (AFD), the overseas development agency of the French government, recently issued a concessional loan of NAD 235 million (USD 13.6 million) to NamPost, Namibia’s postal service, to increase its microlending to pensioners. NamPost will disburse the funds via PostFin, a unit of NamPost that provides financial services such as credit-life insurance and personal loans. The cash will support PostFin’s plans to “reach a market share within pensioners of about 20-30 percent over the next five years.”

Festus Hangua, the CEO of NamPost, said, “I strongly believe that pensioners have a great role to play in our society. This partnership with the French Development Agency, coupled with the expertise of our subsidiary, PostFin, in providing financial services to low-income populations, will enable us to support pensioners who wish to launch [a] small business or simply improve their living conditions and those of their family members.”

Claire Bodonyi, the French Ambassador to Namibia, said the loan “will promote financial inclusion in Namibia by reaching out to thousands of pensioners who are considered as not bankable for credit reasons, by banks and microfinance institutions. It will contribute to the socio-economic resilience of Namibia and will, to a certain extent, mitigate the effects of the COVID-19 crisis, which makes access to financing even more challenging.”

Established in 1992, NamPost operates 137 post offices across Namibia. As of 2019, it reports total assets of NAD 6.5 billion (USD 376 million). Data on the scale of PostFin’s operations are not available.

Established in 1941, AFD is a bilateral development finance institution that implements the overseas development assistance policies of the French government. It operates in 109 countries and is financing approximately 3,500 development projects as of 2020. AFD is a member of the AFD Group, which includes AFD and the private-sector focused Proparco (Promotion et Participation pour la Coopération Économique). In 2019, the AFD Group reached total commitments of EUR 11.4 billion (USD 12.8 billion), including EUR 1.6 billion (USD 1.8 billion) signed by Proparco.

By Simrun Kothari, Research Associate

Sources and Additional Resources

NamPost press release
https://www.nampost.com.na/uploads/documents/67c8c917a4356203cd46545e126f1d9e119546f9.pdf

AFD homepage
https://www.afd.fr/

NamPost homepage
https://www.nampost.com.na

PostFin webpage
https://www.nampost.com.na/postfin

AFD 2019 annual report
https://www.afd.fr/en/ressources/panorama-2019-afd-group-annual-report

NamPost financials
https://www.nampost.com.na/corporate/annual-reports

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