BancoSol: El Reto del Crecimiento en Organizaciones de Microfinanzas (Spanish)

Publication Date: May 1996
Published by: OSU Rural Finance Program
Document Type: Case Study

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What dangers lie on the path of growth when expanding microfinance operations?

This paper focuses on the difficulties inherent in the prudent management of growth of microfinance organizations and on potential limits to the increased efficiency, profitability, and sustainability expected from growth and large size. The paper addresses both positive and negative implications of rapid growth for microfinance organizations. The experience of BancoSol in Bolivia is used to illustrate these questions. BancoSol shows outstanding success in terms of breadth, depth, and quality of outreach and in terms of sustainability. It is the microfinance organization with the largest number of clients in Latin America and it reaches poor clients who could never expect to gain access to conventional financial institutions.

[Author's abstract]