How do you sustainably promote financial inclusion? Medellín may have the answer

Empresas Públicas de Medellín (EPM) has created a social financing program that grants revolving credit to its customers by means of credit cards. By Lucas Figal Garone and Liliana Olarte Rodríguez Normally, in a development bank like the Inter-American Investment Corporation (IIC), the story of an innovative project starts with a question that unites businesses with economic development. For example: how can we sustainably promote financial inclusion among the poorest and most vulnerable groups in society? Financial inclusion is a broad issue, although in recent decades attention has been focused mainly on micro-credit. More recently, global enthusiasm has been waning. Critics argue that microcredit increases the debt level, worsens well-being and fails to have the hoped-for positive effects in other […]

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