An Innovative Scheme Brings Housing to Colombian Public Employees and Pensioners

Date
Jan 2014
Almost 90 percent of adult Colombians have never had access to credit from a formal financial institution. Public employees like police officers, teachers, soldiers, and clerks encounter difficulties when accessing bank credit despite their formal employment. With low salaries, they struggle to make ends meet and face the same problems accessing credit as others living at the base of the pyramid: insufficient credit history, no collateral, and the perception that lending to them is too risky.Bayport Colombia S.A.S. is a non-bank financial intermediary that specializes in loans repayable via payroll deduction for base of the pyramid (BOP) employees in rural areas of Colombia. Founded in 2007 as FiMSA S.A.S., the firm became a subsidiary in 2011 of Bayport Management Limited, a South-African company with a presence in eight countries in Africa and 15 years of experience in areas with low levels of financial inclusion.