Scotiabank and our employees are involved in innovative microfinance initiatives that leverage our core business and lending expertise to create new economic opportunities for local entrepreneurs, especially women and underprivileged farmers or entrepreneurs. Such self-sustaining programs provide access to credit to people who have ideas, energy and initiative to turn a small loan into economic independence for themselves and their families.

In Kingston, Jamaica, we operate Micro-Enterprise Financing Limited (MEFL) in collaboration with the Canadian International Development Agency and the Kingston Restoration Company. First incorporated in 2002, with Cdn$2 million in loan capital from Scotiabank, MEFL offers low-income micro-entrepreneurs access to loans with little or no collateral, savings accounts and training in business development, money management and life skills. Originally established to aid Kingston’s poorest neighborhoods, MEFL has expanded to serve struggling rural clients and farmers.

In 2007, MEFL expanded its team to 15 active loan officers and provided more than 2,013 entrepreneurial and agricultural loans. They also offer an educational assistance loan product to help mature students pay for books, computers or school fees. With an average loan size of Cdn$853 MEFL achieved a 93 per cent loan repayment rate during the year. MEFL officials also note that 69 per cent of borrowers are females and that their loans are indirectly supporting 3,145 dependent children of clients.

With Scotiabank's purchase of Banco del Desarrollo in Chile in 2007, we have acquired its innovative microfinance subsidiary, which has 19 years of experience serving self-employed trades people and micro-businesses - groups that often cannot access traditional banking services. Among the services offered, the Banco del Desarrollo subsidiary manages the "Solidarity Development Program (SDP)" which provides financing to groups of single-mothers in marginalized neighbourhoods to support basic income-generation initiatives and housing acquisition. There are currently almost 4,000 of these operations with loan amounts typically under $500.

Additionally, Banco del Desarrollo's microfinance unit successfully engages in a series of socially oriented lending programs directed towards community development projects, such as rural drinking water co-operatives and support to low-income family farming, fishing, commerce and transport enterprises. At present, the microfinance subsidiary of Banco del Desarrollo works with over 100,000 clients with small scale productive ventures.

We continue to investigate viable opportunities to expand our microfinance programs and develop local partnerships in other locations in the Caribbean or Latin America.