June 14, 2012

CrediComun and Kiva have agreed to end their partnership. After two years and $1.9 million in repaid loans, CrediComun decided to stop posting new loans to Kiva. Since the last status update in January acknowledging the lack of fresh loans and resulting high delinquency rate, all outstanding loans have been repaid to lenders or defaulted. CrediComun's final loans with Kiva have ended and the partnership is now closed. 

January 27, 2012

CrediComun's delinquency rate recently increased to 89.59%, and we wanted to give you some information as to why an increase in that statistic took place.

A Lending Partner's delinquency rate is the portion of loan repayments that are overdue or in arrears, in other words the payment is due but has not been paid.  Only loans still being repaid, referred to as outstanding loans, are included in this calculation.  

Most Lending Partners are continuously funding new loans through Kiva as old loans are repaid.  When this is happening, the delinquency rate is a helpful indicator of the health of the loan portfolio; most of the loans should be repaying on time, while a small percentage of loans being repaid late is typical.

Recently, CrediComun stopped funding new loans on Kiva (however this partnership has not closed).  Their outstanding loans were short-term loans, and so they were quickly fully repaid, leaving only 48 loans still being repaid.  Of these, 42 are being repaid late, resulting in CrediComun's delinquency rate being as high as 89.59%.  If the six loans being repaid on-time are repaid in full before the delinquent loans are repaid, the delinquency rate could climb even higher.

The 42 delinquent loans total $30,415.  To date, CrediComun has funded $1,908,425 through Kiva, with a default rate of 0.25%.  As a percentage of CrediComun's entire portfolio of loans funded through Kiva, the current delinquent loans are a much smaller percentage.

If CrediComun resumes funding new loans through Kiva, the delinquency rate will go back down.  For now, we are in communication with CrediComun, and do not see that the organization is at risk for a longer term repayment crises.

If you have any further questions regarding CrediComun's delinquency rate, please contact customer service at contactus@kiva.org

Thank you for your continued support.
 

As of August 1st, CrediComun’s delinquency rate dropped to 1.37%.

This drop is due largely to changes that CrediComun made in the timing of their repayment reporting to Kiva. Once CrediComun started reporting aggregated monthly repayments on the fifth of each month, the majority of CrediComun’s delinquency rate issues were resolved.

Many thanks to CrediComun and our Kiva Field Support Specialist, who worked together to resolve the issues! We will continue to monitor the repayment reporting process moving forward.

Status update on CrediComun from Kiva Staff on July 7, 2010:

CrediComun's delinquency rate increased to 18.77% on July 1st, 2010. One of Kiva's Field Support Specialists lives and works out of Mexico City, so he stopped by the CrediComun offices in person on Monday, July 4th. After discussing the delinquency rates with CrediComun's staff, we discovered that the majority of the delinquency rate issues were due to some inconsistencies in the timing of CrediComun's repayment reporting to Kiva. To address this issue, we're working with CrediComun to have them start reporting aggregated monthly repayments on the fifth of each month.

These adjustments in the timing of repayment reporting should resolve the inconsistencies, and the results should be reflected next month in CrediComun's delinquency rate.

The Institution

Servicios para el Desarrollo Comunitario, S.A. de C.V., CrediComún, was created under Mexican law on March 11, 2005. We are a developing Microfinance Instituion (MFI) with a entrepreneurial and social focus. Our objective is to promote productivity, revenue generation, and job creation. We currently offer micro-loans through a variety of “communal bank” methodologies to members of under-resourced populations who own micro-businesses or have experience in professional activities and are located in rural or semi-urban areas.

 

Vision

Our vision for the medium- and long-term is to become a consolidated financial institution and to be a leader in our professional sector. We seek to have established roots in our communities and in the families we serve. Together, we seek to create alternative spaces for economic development and popular banking.

 

Mission

Our mission is to contribute to the whole development of our clients with limited resources through microfinance, financial literacy training, and support. We seek to do this through a foundation composed of an entrepreneurial, profitable, specialized, professional and honest culture in order to establish long-term relationships and mutual benefit.

 

Philosophy

Our philosophy is to offer capacity-building and personal-skill-building opportunities through research into and practice of microfinance as a profitable activity and as the principal economic and social tool for supporting thousands of underprivileged people in order to allow these clients to develop legal productive economic activities; industries which, in the long-term, will contribute to the construction of more equal and less violent communities.

 

Service Quality

CrediComún, as part of its constant evolution, continually evaluates the quality of its service provision and the needs of its clients. The results of these evaluations allow us to adopt strategies for both staff training and the adaptation of new Information Technologies with the aim of increasing productivity and efficiency and reducing operating costs. These benefits transfer directly to our borrowers, who are able to receive timely loans, have correct accounts, and receive support from our collaborators.

 

Branches As of Jaunary 2012, CrediComún has a network of 45 branches in the following geographic locations:

2006: there were three branches serving the neighboring communities of Cuautla, Morelos, Atlacomulco and Toluca, within the State of México.

2007: we added two new branches, Lerma in the State of Mexico and Tehuacán in the State of Puebla.

2008: we added the branches of Pachuca and Tula in the State of Hidalgo, San Martín in the State of Puebla, Orizaba in the State of Veracruz, Tenancingo and Jilotepec in the State of Mexico, and Jojutla in the State of Morelos.

2009: we expanded our network of branches to the Yucatán peninsula, with Ticul in the State of Yucatán, Carrillo Puerto, Cancún and Playa del Carmen in the State of Quintana Roo, and one more in Puebla Centro in the State of Puebla.

2010: new branches in Mérida, Campeche, Valladolid, Lázaro Cárdenas, Zihuatanejo, Acapulco, Texcoco, Ecatepec, Chalco, Pátzcuaro, morelia, Ixtlahuaca, Villa Cuauhtémoc, Apatzingan, and Cuernavaca.

2011: new branches in Tetelcingo, Nezahualcoyotl, Tianguistengo, Chiapa de Corzo, Chilpancingo, Comitan, Iguala, Jojutla II, Pijijiapan, Tapachula, Tepeaca, Temixco, and Tuxtla Gutiérrez.

 

Loans through a Communal Banking Methodology

Group creation: We serve groups of 12 to 30 people, principally women, who self-select membership. When forming a group, the members rely on their familiarity with one-another and their faith in each other. All members must need small loans to continue their economic activities or to initiate a business. To ensure the quality of the groups' administration, each must select an Executive Committee made up of a President and a Treasurer.

Moral guaranty: CrediComún only lends to groups in which all the members are responsible with regards to debt. In the case of one member's default for whatever reason, the other members are obligated to cover the said default. Social pressure and moral solvency are integral elements of the payment of a loan's capital and interest.

Savings: In order to access a loan, a Group must have completed three training meetings in which they must have created an internal governance system, elected an executive committee, filled out their official forms, and collected their pre-credit savings, which must constitute 10% of the loan they seek and which, until the loan is fully repaid, serves as a guarantee in case of a late payment.

Savings and monthly payments: According to her means and her previous loan amount, each group member may add weekly voluntary savings to the originally saved amount. These two sums, along with cash incentives awarded by CrediComún, constitute a gradual incrementation of the client's wealth. Every loan is paid off through weekly payments of capital and interest; each member of the group pays off the portion that they borrowed along with the proportional portion of any other member's late payment.

Loan volumes and terms: Loans volumes start small but grow with our familiarity with the group, with each of the members, and with each of the member's businesses. The time they have to repay the full loan, including the capital and interest, is called a cycle; the first cycles last for 16 weeks each while later cycles, with larger loan volumes, may span up to 24 weeks. We want to emphasize that all our potential groups are made up of clients with irreproachable backgrounds.