Banks often consider low income customer too risky and too expensive to serve. This leaves poor people with no choice but to resort to informal, unregulated and often unreliable means of savings, credit and insurance.

FINCA is breaking new ground bringing financial services to the Democratic Republic of Congo by employing an innovative business model of agent banking. To make the service as simple as possible, FINCA uses an advanced biometric identification system where clients use their fingerprint to access their accounts.

The project is supported by IFC and The MasterCard Foundation through the Partnership for Financial Inclusion, an initiative that aims to scale microfinance and advance mobile financial services in Sub-Saharan Africa.

“Before only rich people had access to banks, but now we are really, really happy that they’re helping us poor people save little by little. That’s how we’ll be saved.” says Eliza, FINCA DRC client.