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It was a quiet bank in a sleepy town. In the Philippines, hundreds of rural banks
like this wanted to attract new business. They just didn’t know how.
We did not have a plan at the time. What we needed was something that would set the direction;
tell us how to reach those objectives.
So in 1999, Cantilan Bank began working with a creative new project from USAID, the US
Agency for International Development; one specifically designed to transform rural banking
here.
This bank was a model bank for the program because they knew exactly what they wanted
to do. They wanted to help their community.
The project showed the bank how to reach a huge untapped market: low-income businesses
and households and how to do it so that everyone benefited. It began with basic market research;
getting bank employees for the first time to go door-to-door, surveying potential clients.
The people know that the bank is there. But they don’t know that the bank is for them,
to serve them.
Susana Miranda owns a local furniture shop.
I was hesitant to go to the bank because I thought it was only for rich people. Not for
someone like me with very little income.
Now, eager to attract new, low-income savings accounts the bank slashed its minimum deposit
from the equivalent of $20 to just $2. It encouraged children to open their own savings
accounts. Soon, money from all over the community started flowing into the bank.
Even if one guy deposits five dollars a month, but you’re talking about one thousand people.
The project worked with the bank to start lending that money safely back into the community,
to many of those same small shops and farms.
Lorna Espura borrowed a total of $1,400 to the buy the land where she now grows rice
and okra, sweet potatoes, and string beans.
The bank gave me a loan with no collateral. It was a bigger loan amount, and at a lower
interest rate, than I could get from any money lenders.
With USAID’s guidance, the bank began introducing a variety of new products and services:
mobile banking, so that customers could make deposits and withdrawals from their cell phones.
The first life insurance policies for the poor, and the first home financing for low-income
families.
Roger Autida borrowed $2,800.
The bank loan for this house is a huge help to my family. My wife, and three children,
and me live in the back of my shop. Now we can have a real home.
Thanks to this project, more than 60,000 small business owners and farmers have received
new loans in the area.
The bank is very different now. I feel much more welcome. I have had 23 loans and paid
them all back. They’ve allowed my furniture business to really grow.
Cantillan Bank has grown from 3 branches to 14 branches and 23 satellite offices. It’s
now so successful it’s paying 20 times more taxes to the community. The whole area is
thriving.
The major contribution of the project itself was not just on how we did business with the
poor people, but how we did business generally speaking; to be of service to the community,
to grow in such a way that the clients also grew with us and that the whole community
is now more prosperous.
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