Good news to our valued customers.
Binisons Credit Agency Limited has secured new funding from the Reserve Bank of Malawi through their flagship project; the Financial Inclusion and Entrepreneurship Scaling (FInES) Project. The FInES Project is a multi-year World Bank funded initiative which provides affordable wholesale financing to financial intermediaries so that they channel the same to MSMEs at concessionary rates thereby increasing their access to financial services.
A key objective of FInES is to promote entrepreneurship by addressing the issue of financing constraints that arise out of the information disproportionateness that exists between MSMEs and financial service providers in Malawi. Research has shown that improved entrepreneurship can contribute to economic growth by expanding employment opportunities, increasing productivity and innovation, and improving economic and social livelihoods. This squarely aligns with the core objectives of Binisons Credit Agency of brining affordable loans to the financially unreached communities of the populace.
Requirements
Among other things, the loan facility requires participating financial institutions to have an Environmental and Social Management System (ESMS), which our company has developed and put in place. The facility further requires that the participating institutions should have an established Monitoring and Evaluation system as the loans under the project requires effective pre-and post-disbursement monitoring. Lastly, it also requires that a Grievance Handling Mechanism be put in place, which BCA has also put in place. Consequently, borrowers (our clients) must meet the credit qualification requirements as necessitated by these requirements and other legal demands as highlighted below.
Environmental and Social Management System.
The overall purpose of Environmental and Social Management is to understand and manage risks that arise from environmental and social concerns. The focus is on managing risks and not on avoiding risks and it is intended for encouraging responsible financing practices and not for reducing or restricting financing. However, if there are business activities that are inherently irresponsible and managing these risks are not feasible, BCA should avoid financing those activities. Therefore, the ESMS shall be applied when assessing environmental and social (E&S) risks on all loans granted by BCA taking into account the risk categorization of the client’s businesses as well as their social impact.
- Category A (High risk) activities: are those businesses/activities with potential significant adverse environmental or social risks and/or impacts that are diverse, irreversible, or unprecedented.
- Category B (Medium risk activities): are those businesses/activities with potential limited adverse environmental or social risks and/or impacts that are few in number, generally site-specific, largely reversible, and readily addressed through mitigation measures.
- Category C (Low risk) activities: are those businesses/activities with minimal or no adverse environmental or social risks and/or impacts.
From social aspects point of view, BCA shall observe the following for all businesses it finances;
- Provide equal opportunity to all social or gender groups in terms of employment and business relations;
- Have social acceptance from the surrounding community;
- Observe labor standards and working conditions including occupational health and safety;
- Abstain from financing businesses that use child and forced labour;
- Observe and eliminate negative impact of business on cultural heritage and involuntary resettlement;
- Abstain from financing projects and businesses that are in the Exclusion List as shown below.
From environment aspects point of view, BCA shall observe the following for all businesses it finances:
- Ensure that businesses financed observe environmental safety standards and regulatory requirements in line with country laws and international best practices;
- Observe and eliminate negative impact of business on Biodiversity Conservation and Natural Resources;
- Observe and eliminate negative impact of business on cultural heritage objects, sites and structures (e.g. Artefacts, archaeological sites, graves, and other sacred areas);
- Abstain from financing projects and businesses that are in the Exclusion List
Client’s loan applications shall summarily be rejected if it falls within prohibited transactions like;
- Production or trade in any product or activity deemed illegal under Malawian laws or regulations or international conventions and agreements.
- Production or trade in weapons or ammunitions.
- Gambling, casinos and equivalent enterprises.
- Production or trade in alcoholic beverages (excluding beer and wine).
- Activities targeting tobacco manufacturing, processing, or specialist tobacco distribution, and activities facilitating the use of tobacco.
- Trade in wildlife or wildlife products regulated under Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).
- Production or trade in radioactive materials.
- Production or trade in or use of unbounded asbestos fibres.
- Any activities involving significant degradation or conversion of natural and/or critical habitats and/or any activities in legally protected areas.
- Activities damaging to national monuments and other cultural heritage.
- Unsustainable fishing practices such as drift net fishing in the marine environment using nets in excess of 2.5 km in length, electric shocks, or explosive materials.
- Production or trade in wood or other forestry products other than from sustainably managed forests.
- Production or trade in pharmaceuticals, pesticides/herbicides, ozone depleting substances, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) subject to international phase outs or bans.
- Production or activities involving harmful or exploitative forms of forced labour or hazardous child work.
- Production, trade, storage, or transport of significant volumes of hazardous chemicals, or commercial scale usage of hazardous chemicals (gasoline, kerosene, other petroleum products, textile dyes etc.).
- Production or activities that have adverse impacts, including relocation, on the lands, natural resources, or critical cultural heritage subject to traditional ownership or under customary use by historically underserved traditional local communities.
- Activities involving land acquisition and/or restrictions on land use resulting in involuntary resettlement or economic displacement.
- Military or police equipment or infrastructures, and equipment or infrastructure which result in limiting people’s individual rights and freedom (i.e. prisons, detention centres of any form) or in violation of human rights.
- Activities involving live animals for experimental and scientific purposes.
- Loans to finance projects which have no Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) while they are legally supposed to have a mandatory ESIA;
Grievance Addressing Mechanism
BCA operates in an open environment and has an open door policy that enhances support, friendship and professional collaboration. BCA is committed to adhering to standards and procedures of accountability and transparency in all its business operations including lending as set out in its governance policies. BCA will continue addressing the environmental impact of its business activities, directly or indirectly with those doing business with BCA. Consequently, BCA has put in place a Grievance Addressing Mechanism (GAM) aiming at providing guidelines on managing and responding to various project related complaints as received from project affected individual, organization or community. The procedure will apply during all main stages of project cycle, initiation, construction, operation and closure. BCA will require its clients to have in place a grievance mechanism to be able to receive and assist resolve project-affected parties concerns and grievances arising from the project. The grievance mechanism should be appropriate for anticipated project risks and impacts. However, the interested and affected parties can resort to channel their project related grievance directly to BCA as per the procedures outlined below.
- The interested, affected, or aggrieved parties can channel or report their concerns or interest by calling the BCA call center or WhatsApp through +265995455553 where there is an active sales person who also receives and record any query regarding the company and its business operations
- If the aggrieved or interested party is not satisfied with response, he/she can visit our offices and ask for the Branch manager, where the party shall lodge their complaint or an interest by filling a form.
- The interested, affected, or aggrieved parties can alternatively or if not satisfied by means of lodging a query in 1 and 2 choose to write directly to The BCA compliance officer, Box 10 Mponera or send an email to admin@binisons.com
- Finally, if the interested, affected, or aggrieved parties fill they have not been well assisted by BCA responses, they can ask for Fines project GRM procedures with contacts so that they start engaging them directly.
Application process for FInES loans at BCA
- Interest loan applicants must be organized in loan groups of not less than five members and not more than ten members
- They must have a well-structured club management team
- They must come up with a binding group constitution for a loan group.
- Must be trained by our officers in loans management at club level, group management, bookkeeping and dynamics
- All members must be trained on BCA loans contract and supporting documents, their implications, and members rights before and after signing them
- All members should have movable and easy to dispose assets as loan collateral
- Must have loan KYC form done by our loan officers or sales representative agents
- The Loan group must have an active Bank account for their loan group name through which our loans disbursement is done.
- Must have a startup or an established business
- The business of each club member must pass BCA Environmental and Social Management System assessment ( ESMS) and must not be on the exclusion list
- Acknowledgement letter from the Village head
- Each Loan group member must have a valid ID