The majority of the Ecuadorian population does not have access to basic services such as electricity, water and telephone, and the access to the education, health, and housing systems is limited. More than 50% of the population lives under the poverty line and 21.7% live on 60 cents a day or $18 dollars a month, i.e. worse than the dog of a well-off family, whose upkeep might cost $24 a month.
For a second put yourself in the shoes of those mothers and fathers who suffer because they cannot afford food for their children every day, who cannot ease their pain when they are sick or protect them from the cold when they sleep. This is the main reason why we try to “Vivir Solidario” and develop our mission of giving access to state-of-the-art financial products to the huge number of people who want to work but cannot, simply because they do not have the means to develop their business.
At Banco Solidario we set ourselves the goal, as our mission, of reducing poverty. We have added to our goal of financial profitability, an objective of social profitability and, for each decision that we take, we measure the impact on the pocket of our client. In this way we create wealth and well-being.
We try to get people and micro-entrepreneurs out of the trap of usury; people who, because they have no option, leave the wealth they create in the hands of others. We do so by offering them assistance so that they learn to manage the financial side of their business. We also prepare them for the transition of going from the unregulated to the regulated sector (40% of our clients has been “bankarized” in 2007. More information in the Annual Report 2007). These are all concrete actions that offer us the opportunity to help, to Vivir Solidario.
It is an operation whose social profitability is objectively measurable and quantifiable: in 2003 we helped to improve the lives of more than 100,000 Ecuadorians and their families, to the tune of over $120 million a year, supporting them so that the wealth that they create stays in their hands.
However, there are still more than 1,200,000 families who do not have access to the financial system. But motivated by the philosophy of Vivir Solidario which drives collaborators, shareholders, depositors, and customers, we are going to keep opening doors until we achieve the “Yes, we can” Ecuador that we all dream of.
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The Bank