Financial Inclusion and Technology for Peru’s Poorest
CAF, in partnership with COFIDE and Fundefir, is set to develop a pilot project to test a mobile application intended to facilitate access to services provided by as many as 20 Peruvian credit and savings unions (UNICAs), as well as educate their users in a practical way.
The agreement was signed by COFIDE, the Peruvian Development Bank and the Foundation for Rural Funding (Fundefir) within the framework of the Financial Inclusion Program, which is part of CAF- Development Bank of Latin America’s Social Innovation Initiative, with the purpose of developing a pilot project to test the mobile application developed by Fundefir, in partnership with CAF and Expolive Dubai 2020, to manage its Bankomunales on 20 of Peru’s UNICAs, through the Inclusive Program for Rural Entrepreneurial Development (PRIDER).
The application will facilitate automation of the PRIDER methodology and access to savings, credit and investment services, as well as its users in a practical way. It will also improve the follow-up quality and reduce group creation, supervision and monitoring costs, while making it easy to expand to other regions of Peru at a low cost.
In this sense, CAF Social Innovation director Ana Mercedes Botero said that the application aims to promote the scale of innovative financial education and inclusion schemes for Peru’s poorest. She also said that the software tested well among UNICA partners from the Pisco province, who wholeheartedly welcomed the application by acknowledging its practicality and ease of use when managing their UNICAs.
Additionally, the incorporation of technology to the UNICA model will allow users to obtain current high-quality data, which may be analyzed and used to provide solutions tailored to the needs of patrons, while making it possible to regulate an alternative system that complements and facilitates the strategy to incorporate these groups into the formal systems.
It is very important for COFIDE to validate this pilot project through the acceptance level of the credit and savings unions partners themselves. In this regard, COFIDE Financial Inclusion sub-manager Manuel Layseca said that the project’s sustainability, as well as its escalation, will be a reality if it provides members with tangible value that motivates them to use it to manage their organizations.
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