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Small Loans, Big Changes

Mission and Vision

The mission of FINCA International is to provide financial services to the world's lowest-income entrepreneurs so they can create jobs, build assets and improve their standard of living.

The vision of FINCA International is to be a global microfinance network collectively serving more low-income entrepreneurs than any other MFI while operating on commercial principles of performance and sustainability.

FINCA today reaches 725,000 clients in 21 countries.

But the scope of global poverty compels us all to do more. At the beginning of the new century, the nations of the world agreed to work toward eight Millennium Development Goals that would eliminate extreme poverty and hunger by 2015.

FINCA takes that challenge seriously. That is why we launched the Village Banking Campaign. It will enable FINCA to double its impact: to use the power of microfinance to extend loans, microinsurance, and savings to one million poor families by 2010 so they can effect their own development.

FINCA Country Programs

Regions and Countries

Democratic Republic of Congo, Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia Ecuador,El Salvador,Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico and Nicaragua Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan Afghanistan, Jordan

With wholly-owned subsidiaries in Africa, Eurasia, Latin America, and the Greater Middle East serving over 735,000 clients, FINCA's geographic reach is among the widest of the leading microfinance networks. FINCA's birthplace was in Latin America, and that region remains the largest in terms of clients served. But the programs in Africa, Eurasia and the Greater Middle East are growing rapidly, evidence that microfinance works in very different markets and cultures.

FINCA has become a leader in microfinance services for post-conflict societies. Since our founding in 1984, we have been among the first to arrive to help shattered communities rebuild. FINCA launched its Kosovo program immediately after the cease-fire, moved into the Democratic Republic of Congo in the wake of its bloody civil war, and opened its doors in Afghanistan in 2003, soon after the Taliban regime was defeated.

Natalie Portman with members of a FINCA Uganda Village Banking group in Jinga, Uganda, in July 2007

Countries emerging from conflict typically have large numbers of returning refugees and soldiers. Unless those people can start making a living quickly, there is a risk that the society will slide back into the chaos from which it just emerged. FINCA is a first responder to ensure that doesn't happen.

FINCA also works in some of the poorest communities in the world. All poor people need financial services, and different microfinance providers specialize in different niches. FINCA has an institutional commitment to serve the poorest of the poor. We operate in communities that other microfinance providers have declined to enter, and our average loan size, among the very lowest in the microfinance industry, suggests that we are succeeding in our mission.

To donate to FINCA, please click here.

To contact FINCA, please click here.