June 1, 2009
DUCA makes loan to help launch Opportunity's microfinance bank in Colombia

DUCA Financial Services, a credit union based in North York, Ontario, recently made a $100,000 loan to help Opportunity International Canada start a full-fledged commercial financial institution in Colombia. This low-interest loan, the first philanthropic investment of any kind to Opportunity International Canada, will help capitalize Opportunity International Colombia — the new microfinance bank, preparing it for operations in 2010. Once open, the bank will be able to offer a range of transformational microfinance services to remote and marginalized segments of the population.

“In recent years, 3.8 million Colombians have been displaced from their homes and 49% of the population lives in extreme poverty,” notes Paula Curtis, Opportunity International Canada’s President & CEO. “DUCA’s generous loan will help extend Opportunity’s reach to the rural communities where the most vulnerable families live.”

In the months leading up to the loan, Jack Vanderkooy, President & CEO of DUCA, along with Arnold Denton, Senior VP Credit at DUCA Financial Services, traveled to Cartagena, Colombia to engage Opportunity’s work on the ground. While in Cartagena, they met Colombians who with a loan of $150 were able to transition from subsistence poverty to sustainable income. “The disconnect between what we see as poverty on TV and from a bus window and what we actually experience when entering people's homes and interacting with them is probably our biggest take away from this trip,” states Jack Vanderkooy.

DUCA’s new lending partnership with Opportunity reflects their founding ethos. The credit union was founded in 1954 by a group of Dutch immigrants to Canada who wanted to provide financial services to those who could not access the existing banks. Like those early settlers, Opportunity International Canada aims to provide business-building financial services to those who might otherwise have no access to them in the developing world. Thank you, DUCA, for your philanthropic investment that extends this same kind of opportunity, hope, and dignity to the entrepreneurial poor in Colombia.

For more information: www.duca.com