Financial Markets

IFC is pleased to bring you a new e-book Capturing our Impact: Closing the Gaps in Access to Finance, which describes the transformative effect of giving the poor and small businesses access to financial services that previously were out of reach.

These are the stories from around the world of 20 people whose lives have changed and small business owners who have profited. For more than 40 years, IFC has worked with the financial sector to make financial services affordable, accessible, and transparent for people and businesses that need them. Using investment money and advice, we work with financial intermediaries—including banks, nonbank financial institutions, and microfinance institutions—to strengthen their ability to deliver these services.

Our client financial institutions had portfolios of more than 3.2 million loans to small and medium businesses worth $181.2 billion, and more than 19 million microloans worth $19.7 billion, in 2011.

Here are the stories behind those numbers.

They are stories of why access to financial services can make a sustainable difference in the lives of people around the world. These people include an unemployed Chinese factory worker who built an eco-friendly farm, a Rwandan genocide survivor who leased a cow to provide for her children, and a Colombian farmer trying to survive after devastating floods. 

View e-book with videos | Download PDF