Word: llosa
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...organization Llosa runs, now called Mibanco, converted from a nonprofit into a bank, demonstrating what other microfinance institutions around the world knew too: that the poor are good risks who repay loans on time; get enough of them together, you can not only chip away at poverty but also turn a profit...
...Today Llosa has a very different marketplace to contend with. Success at Mibanco has piqued the interest of the commercial banks, which historically have shunned the 45% of Peruvians below the poverty line. Now big banks are going after Mibanco's clients with low-rate loans and--realizing it takes special know-how to work with the unbanked--hiring away Mibanco's employees as well. "They are very good competitors," says Llosa...
...getting more of them, from directions he never could have anticipated. Last year the Spanish multinational BBVA raised some $300 million to invest in microfinance, then reached across the Atlantic to snap up two Peruvian firms. "Everyone wants to do this now," says Llosa. "And it's not only Peru. This change is everywhere. Everywhere microfinance is working, it's happening...
Back in Peru, Mibanco now offers consumer loans. It pretty much has to. "Our main business is for microcompanies, but people also want to buy a TV or a refrigerator, and we need to have the capacity to give a loan," says Llosa. "If we don't, they will go to another institution...
...offering incentives to current customers to get friends to sign up. That's hardly insidious--as anyone with a gym membership can tell you--but it does flick at the concern that lenders might start driving demand. And now Mibanco is contemplating an ipo. "We have two objectives," says Llosa. "One of them is to have a social impact, but we also look to be profitable. If we decide to only have a social impact, we won't have resources to grow...