As Creci company, we feel very proud to have clients with such a positive impact into communities, and we look forward to keeping these business relationships over time to increase financial inclusion impact. One of them is Salomon Raydan, Fundefir CEO and founder, who is a person dedicated to transform lives, Salomon has a Political Science Master’s degree from the London School of Economics, in 2010 he was chosen to present his proposal within the Globalizer framework, in addition to that, he was also chosen as social entrepreneur of the year by Univision, among other awards received as well, for his labor related to financial education promotion and welfare promotion as well, when it comes about low social background people.
Fundefir began 22 years ago when small loans were at their highest point, as an inappropriate solution, considering that low social background people most important necessity, was in that moment to save money, and not to increase debts. In that moment, people used to think that low social background people couldn`t be able to save money and it was at that point when Fundefir proved that saving money was the most effective way to easily achieve financial goals. While most of the people around world were thinking that the poor ones ran out of money, they have already been able to prove for 20 years or more, that it is completely possible for them, through financial education and a good business model.
Even though for experts, financial inclusion is the only way to bring financial services to the people who need it the most, Fundefir suggests informal procedures as a reliable, profitable, and educational way to bring financial services to these populations. In 1999, on a small Venezuelan island called Macanao, the first Bankomunal was created with “Fundación de Financiamiento Rural” (Fundefir) support, compound by organized community groups who learned how to use their own resources and how to self-financing.
By 2018 Fundefir’s model had been reproduced in 20 countries located in four different continents and had favored thousands of families. In 2018 they managed to raise 1.5 million USD in savings, 8 million USD in credits with their own resources, 100 thousand benefited people. Thanks to Fundefir more than 320 community members have been favored by these business initiatives, this year (2021) they created the Bk-app, which is a mobile platform where they collect and systematize their experience and model, this app allows anyone to make their own savings and credit group. Through this, they not only want to focus on transactions speed and security, but also on creating spaces to redirect family expenses and generate poverty mitigators.
Fundefir is lined up with the first one of the Sustainable Development Goals, which is “Poverty End “, as it pretends to understand work informality, give financial education, and transform the way people relate with money. They have been Creci’s clients for a long time, and we both have been able to expand and grow together, they got access to one of our loans due to their commitment to social impact through financial inclusion. They are creating another micro-finance, a self-managed one, which uses low social background people savings and investment, and this is how they have improved people lifestyle, generating profits, education, security, confidence and opportunities for many abandoned people.
