Financial inclusion is about placing the person at the center of the business, for example, “making it easy for the client to open an account” in a region where the levels of bank use are low, and accompanying them throughout the process.
In a region like Central America, where “an average of 50% of the population lives in poverty,” financial inclusion emerges as a tool to combat it.
This was stated by the general manager of Banco Ficohsa Panama, Alejandro Chamorro.
“We are among the three fastest growing (banking entities) in the region,” which is “attributed, in part, to financial inclusion.”
“We have put the client and the person at the center of the business,” said Chamorro, in the framework of the celebration of 50 years of the EFE Agency in Central America.
Grupo Financiero Ficohsa, founded in Honduras in 1994, currently operates in that country, in Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panama, and the United States.
It has a workforce of 5,000 workers, of whom 57% are women.
financial education
The bank has trained “more than 1.25 million people” in the region through its “Mis Finanzas” platform, a financial education project that guides “how to manage your finances, your personal expenses, your budgets.”
“As a bank, I think the ‘Mis Finanzas’ project is one of the biggest contributions we can make,” Chamorro said.
It is about achieving not only the “financial inclusion of vulnerable populations” through “solutions that make life easier for Central Americans.”
On the contrary, also from key sectors for development and job creation such as micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (Mipymes).
Mypymes project
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) “generate between 30% and 40% of the gross domestic product (GDP) and between 65% and 80% of employment in the Northern Triangle” of Central America.
It is a group made up of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, Chamorro stressed during the colloquium “Panama, axis of sustainable development in Central America”, organized by the EFE Agency in the Panamanian capital.
The Ficohsa bank has “the Mipymes project, which is financing and education for small and medium-sized companies.”
“Not only do we give them access to financing, but we also teach them how to manage credit, finances and business. We have developed customized products for them”, affirmed the general manager.
Thus, this Central American bank “has created solutions for more than 21,000 SMEs, of which 50% are led by women.”
financial inclusion
“Additionally, we have implemented an environmental policy in which we not only take care of what we do, but also have a methodology to review how our clients behave with the environment,” he said.
“Part of the analyzes we do when it comes to getting a client is to see their behavior with the environment,” he added.
The colloquium “Panama, axis of sustainable development in Central America”, was sponsored by the financial group Ficohsa and Coca Cola.