Sèvis Finansye Fonkoze S.A. (SFF) is one of Haiti’s leading microfinance institutions, with 44 branches across the country. Group loans have been its most important credit product, but as urban markets become more important and the institution aims to increase profitability, SFF is now emphasising its new Business Development/SME loan. SFF wants to increase the number of loan clients in the portfolio, from currently around 7,000 to 19,000.

In order to achieve this goal, SFF acquired technical assistance funding from the Swiss Capacity Building Fund, which assigned IPC to support the institution in establishing a strong governance structure and improving capacities to facilitate sustainable portfolio growth.

IPC’s experts implement the following tasks:

General

• Reviewing current lending procedures for individuals and formulating recommendations to improve processes
• Comparing SFF’s individual loan conditions to those of its main competitors to develop sales arguments and propose further product developments
• Developing a marketing plan with SFF to acquire more Business Development/SME clients

Making lending procedures more efficient and improving staff capacities

• Enabling loan officers to process applications faster
• Advising IT in development of a standard client credit history report

• Adapting current analysis form to make information more traceable and include more details on client premises
• Reviewing approval forms to ensure disbursement conditions are clear and are met before disbursement
• Training over 200 staff members (branch managers, assistant branch managers, loan officers) on the revised lending procedures, financial analysis, credit risk and time management

Establishing a credit control unit

• Developing a standardised credit file review programme for Business Development/SME loans
• Defining job descriptions for internal controllers
• Formulating procedures for the credit control unit
• Training newly recruited internal controllers and coaching on-the-job

Improving credit risk management

• Implementing processes to document the monitoring and recovery activities of loan officers
• Advising IT in development of a standard report on payments expected in the coming days
• Setting up arrears committees and write-off committees