Banco Comercial e de Investimento

Debt : January 2013 - September 2019

BIO's USD 15 million loan supports Banco Comercial e de Investimentos in increasing its capacity to provide financing to SMEs in Mozambique.

Amount

€ 11,194,029.85

Type of investment

Debt

Development impacts

Local economic growth
Private sector consolidation/innovation
Financial inclusion

Beneficiary locations

Africa: Mozambique

Investment field

Financial Institutions

Activity

Commercial bank

Organisation

Banco Comercial e de Investimento

Website

https://www.bci.co.mz/

Domicile

Mozambique

Proceeds of BIOs loan will be exclusively used to grow the Banks SME portfolio, defined as the pool of loans extended to SMEs to which the Bank has, individually, an exposure of maximum USD 2m. In this way, BIO will reach out to 15-20 SMEs, hereby contributing to maintaining and creating approximately 450 jobs.

BIOs loan will have a maturity of seven years and will be extended in local currency, thereby enabling the Bank to provide business loans in local currency with longer tenors. This is particularly beneficial for local SMEs, as most of them have no access to USD revenues and require in priority financing for long-term investment purposes. In this context BIOs investment will establish an important precedent, as it will be the first long-term local currency loan conceded by a foreign investor to a Mozambican bank.

BCI puts in extra efforts for SMEs, it has developed solutions to reach out to unbanked Mozambicans, including for instance a "truck banking" scheme which allows it to provide banking services to Mozambicans living in remote areas as well as a "women in business" scheme whereby 90 women entrepreneurs were trained and obtained a loan from the Bank.

Development impacts

Local economic growth
Job creation both at Bank and client level
Private sector consolidation/innovation
Diversification of the financial sector and credit allocation
Financial inclusion
Enhancing access to financial services for SME's