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B Corp certification for Alterfin

B Corp is a certification for companies that meet societal, environmental, governance and transparency requirements in the public interest. Its goal is to put the private sector on the pathway to sustainability. B Corp helps companies to benchmark and compare their social and environmental impacts against the world's most demanding standard. More about B Corp

Alterfin Guarantee Fund: call for donations!

In 2000, the cooperative Alterfin, in collaboration with its development cooperation partners (including the NGO platform 11.11.11, Oxfam Solidarité and SOS Faim), created the non-profit organisation Alterfin Guarantee Fund. Its role is to support partners in the South that lack sufficient guarantees or require financing in local currency, by providing guarantees or currency hedging solutions, in order to facilitate their access to financing and hence the development of their activity. Unlike the cooperative, this fund is supplied entirely by donations. Currently, the Guarantee Fund has EUR 1

Read our 2017 Annual Report

See how our investment portfolio evolved over the course of 2017, read about how we contributed to the Sustainable Development Goals with concrete examples from the field, and examne the analysis of our financial performance in the 2017 Annual Report. Read the Annual Report

Alterfin in Asia: A Mission Spanning Land and Sea

Alterfin can boast activities spanning the length and breadth of Asia and the company is henceforth financing nine new partners in four new countries: Indonesia, the Philippines, Kirghizstan and Tajikistan. We have pleasure in presenting an overview of our new Asian partnerships. In 2017 Alterfin focused on the diversification of its portfolio with the financing of new agricultural produce and microfinance institutions (MFI) in new countries. This represents an opportunity for Alterfin to explore the Asian continent with its reinforced team of new members, and has led to our investments in

Quarterly performance as of 30 September 2017

Portfolio performance Alterfin’s total investments, via the capital brought by the co-op members and third-party funds, amounted to EUR 63 million at the end of September 2017. This represents a quarterly increase of 12.5%, which can be attributed primarily to the new investments made in Asia (see “Alterfin in Asia” article). The growth in investments is also explained by the seasonal nature of certain farm produce (such as cocoa, rice and shea butter), the production and harvesting cycles of which call for financial support between July and September. Portfolio quality The risk portfolio (

Quarterly performance as at 30 June 2017

Portfolio performance Alterfin's total investments (via capital from investors and third-party funds) was EUR 55.7 million at the end of June 2017, down 10% from March 2017, but up 1.2% on June 2016. This quarterly decrease mainly relates to our financing in Latin America and Africa. It is due firstly to the depreciation of the US dollar against the euro: Alterfin's portfolio mainly consists of dollar loans, and the conversion of these loans into euros tends to reduce their value as the dollar depreciates. Secondly, the coffee season has ended in Central America and has just begun in South

Fairtrade wine: the good taste of development

Since 2011, Alterfin is financing the fairtrade wine of the Argentine cooperative La Riojana. We take a look at our headiest partner. Small wine-growers in Argentina face very low market prices that do not allow them to generate enough income to meet the basic needs of their families. They have limited investment opportunities to modernise their production systems, and this reduces their productivity and hinders their competitiveness with large companies. To try to remedy this, growers can sell their produce on the fairtrade market. Small family farms therefore get together to form

Leading Agricultural Lenders Deploy $682 Million to Support Small Businesses and Farmer Livelihoods Globally

Members of the Council on Smallholder Agricultural Finance (CSAF) today announced in their newly published State of the Sector report that they provided $682 million in loans to 765 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) during 2016. This financing helped to generate an estimated $7.6 billion in combined annual revenue among these businesses, which employ 75,000 individuals and connect more than 2.3 million smallholder farmers—nearly one-third of whom are women—to domestic and international markets. CSAF is an alliance of 11 leading impact-focused lenders that serve the financing needs of

Quarterly performance as at 31 March 2017

Portfolio performance Alterfin's total investments (via capital from co-op members and third-party funds) was EUR 61.9 million at the end of March 2017, down 8% from the end of 2016. This decrease reflects the seasonal nature of agricultural activities – in line with the pattern in previous years – and the desire to reduce the exposure of our portfolio in markets that present increasing risks. At this time of the year, the coffee and cocoa harvest is nearing completion in Central America and Africa. Partners in those sectors and area reimburse their credits to Alterfin, which leads to a

Sustainable development in the feminine

As a guest of honour at our General Assembly of 2017, the microfinance institution (MFI) Pro Mujer Argentina explained its decision to grant loans to women only. An encounter in Brussels with the institution’s director. A microfinance institution that lends only to women? Yes, it exists and Alterfin is financing one them. Its name is Pro Mujer. Founded in Bolivia in 1990, its mission is to promote the development of women in Latin America. To this end, it offers a range of financial services, including microloans (for an average amount of EUR 600), savings and insurance services, and business

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