FINCA International

FINCA International

Type	Nonprofit Organization
Founded	1984
Headquarters	Washington, DC, United States
Key people	John Hatch, founder, and Rupert Scofield, President and CEO
Products	Financial Services Microfinance
Revenue	$413,750,264 (Dec 31, 2014)
Number of employees	approximately 10,000 (November 9, 2016)
Website	www.FINCA.org

FINCA International is a non-profit, microfinance organization, founded by John Hatch in 1984. Sometimes referred to as the "World Bank for the Poor", FINCA is the innovator of the village banking methodology in microcredit and is widely regarded as one of the pioneers of modern-day microfinance. With its headquarters in Washington, D.C., FINCA has 21 affiliated host-country institutions (affiliates), in Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa, Eurasia and the Middle East and South Asia. Along with Grameen Bank and Accion International, FINCA is considered to be one of the most influential microfinance organizations in the world.

In 1984, Hatch, a Fulbright-trained economist and international development expert, conceived a new method for delivering assistance to the poor. In an airplane high above the Andes, Hatch was en route to a consultant assignment in Bolivia, when inspiration struck. He grabbed in-flight cocktail napkins, scraps of paper, and a pen and began writing down ideas, equations, and flow charts as fast as he could. By the time he landed in La Paz, he had the outline of a radically different approach to poverty alleviation: a financial services program that put the poor in charge. “Give poor communities the opportunity, and then get out of the way!” he said. He called the idea "village banking". This approach gave the poor the opportunity to obtain loans without collateral-the poor's main obstacle to accessing credit—at market-level interest rates.

Hatch first had to convince a group of USAID officers that his epiphany would pay off—for the rural poor and the government of the United States, whose grant dollars would fund the first projects. Remarkably, the officials liked his innovative idea and provided an initial grant of $1 million. Hatch and his Peruvian business partner, Aquiles Lanao, launched the program in five separate geographical areas of Bolivia and within four weeks, they had created funds in 280 villages serving 14,000 families with loans worth $630,000. Hatch's clients in Bolivia were puzzled at first by village banking because it represented a significant departure from business as usual. They were intrigued enough to try it, however, and it was an immediate success. When Hatch's client in Bolivia changed its in-country team, the new representatives shut the program down. More cautious than the original client team, the new group acknowledged the program's success but still felt that uncollateralized lending to very poor people was too risky. Undeterred, Hatch spent the next few months training others in the village banking methodology, helping open new programs throughout Latin America, and building the institution that would come to be known as FINCA International. FINCA incorporated in 1985.