Microfinance
The NAID Center has established an elaborate network of microfinance partnerships throughout Latin America. Some of the projects include, the creation and facilitation of products and services that link the Diaspora to development initiatives in communities of origin, and the implementation of mobile/debit technology in the microfinance sector, in order to contribute to the lowering of high costs associated with microfinance and greater impacts upon development.
Mobile Banking
The NAID Center, in partnership with private technology companies, has undertaken research-policy agendas in the U.S., Latin America, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East to create implement and mobile banking technologies, and to measure the subsequent impacts on financial access and empowerment in traditionally excluded communities, like low-income areas in the U.S. and in developing countries.
Mobile Banking & Micro-Finance
Sociedad de Micro Bancos (SMB) Rural, C.V., the umbrella group of microbanks affiliated with AMUCSS and located in rural indigenous regions of Mexico, four of which were identified in the Mexico corridor sites.
In 2010, SMB board members considered terminating its remittance service due to high transaction costs. NAID met with the board in Miahuatlán, Oaxaca on several occasions. The board came to understand the potential of participating in an expanded financial ecosystem facilitated by mobile banking to extend the reach of its brick-and-mortar member microbanks; how mobile banking reduces CFIs’ transaction costs; and agreed in principal to partner with NAIDs recommended DCOs.
The four microbanks include:
In 2010, SMB board members considered terminating its remittance service due to high transaction costs. NAID met with the board in Miahuatlán, Oaxaca on several occasions. The board came to understand the potential of participating in an expanded financial ecosystem facilitated by mobile banking to extend the reach of its brick-and-mortar member microbanks; how mobile banking reduces CFIs’ transaction costs; and agreed in principal to partner with NAIDs recommended DCOs.
The four microbanks include:
- Fin Rural Social Civil (S.C.). in Pahuatlán, Puebla
- Credimich S.C. in Álvaro Obregón, Michoacán
- Eco de la Montaña S.C., Huamuxtitlán,Guerrero
- Ucepco S.C., San Augustìn Loxicha, Oaxaca
