A giant in microlending

Major bank’s small loans make big splash in Chile

Public–private partnership: Eduardo Casanova (left), of Chile's FOSIS social investment fund, attended the IDB's III Inter-American Forum on Microenterprise held in October in Barcelona, Spain, along with Osvaldo Barrientos (center) and Pedro Pablo Ortiz, two managers of Banefe, Chile's leading microlender. FOSIS runs a program based on subsidies that allows private sector financial institutions like Banefe, a division of Banco Santander de Chile, to extend credit to tens of thousands of microentrepreneurs. The Chilean government and the private sector are also working in tandem to give businesspeople of modest means more access to other financial and nonfinancial services. Another example of these joint efforts is Zonaempresas.cl, an Internet portal designed for microentrepreneurs. Photo by Ricard García.

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