Grameen Swapna

In Bangladesh, the poor people have traditionally been denied access to the formal banking system, as they are unable to provide collateral for loans and typically deal in small amounts of money. This means that they have few opportunities to save, borrow and invest. Moneylenders in the informal credit markets charge very high interest rates which also restricts people’s access to credit. We believe that making credit, which can be invested in productive activity, universally available is essential in reducing poverty. Grameen Swapna has initiated Microfinance Program since 1999. The aim of this program was to alleviate poverty through facilitating the poor to get access to resources and thereby empowering them. Microfinance helps poor members initiate income-generation activities, increases income and at the same time through social safety program and health program (inclusive of community and hospital services) enables them to sustain the economic development they have achieved through the financial support.

Grameen Swapna provides access to financial services to the poor who are unable to obtain credit from mainstream banks due to lack of necessary assets and referrals. The borrowers, most of whom are women, use these loans to engage in various income generating activities to improve their socio-economic status. Efficient management system and tools, linkage with financial institutions, identification of alternative micro-schemes, approach to address the poorest of the poor section and access to the remotest and hard-to-reach locations have added an extra dimension to Grameen Swapna’s microfinance program. Grameen Swapna receives credit funds and operational backstop support from well as international financing agencies. The program covers target beneficiaries like ultra-poor, poor, small-marginal farmers, businessmen, fishermen, entrepreneurs, char (Island) coastal and monga (Seasonal food crises) affected people, etc. Total populations covered under microfinance program are above 10 lakh.

Objectives
The major objectives of our microfinance programme are provide easy, reliable and efficient access to institutional financial services for the poor that include credit and savings;
Make credit available to the poor helpless people who do not have access to the existing (formal) credit facilities
Help create self-employment and sustainable income for the target people through Income Generating Activities (IGA) and enterprises
Mobilize savings for the poor
Reduce dependency on moneylenders
Reduce carbon by giving solar credit
Enhance income of the organization for its sustainability
Women empowerment

Key Features of Loans:
Loan range: Tk. 3000-10,000
Interest rate: 15% flat
Repayment mechanism: equal weekly installments
Loan products: general loan, sectorial program loan, micro-enterprise development program loan.

Rural Development Program (RDP) Loan:
Poverty alleviation for poor landless women. Rural Development Program (RDP) Loan is the core component of our microfinance programme. We organize landless groups of women in rural, semi-urban and urban slums into self-selected groups commonly known as village organizations (VOs).These VOs serve as platforms for various financial and non-financial development activities including savings, credit, health, education, social development and livelihood support. RDP members have access to microloans and savings schemes that help reduce their vulnerability and support their self-employment initiatives. The loans are used to support a wide range of activities that the poor engage in to sustain their livelihoods. These range from agricultural activities such as growing rice, maize or vegetables and livestock rearing to non-farm activities such as running a restaurant or grocery store. All RDP members are women and the average loan size ranges from BDT 5,000 to BDT 25,000 “We have seen real changes since joining BRAC.

Small enterprise Loan:
Grameen Swapna’s Small enterprise Loan addresses the credit needs of small entrepreneurs in Bangladesh who require loan facilities to expand their commercial enterprises or to meet the needs for working capital to run their businesses. These small entrepreneurs are known as the ‘missing middles’ who have difficulty accessing credit facilities from institutional sources as they neither fall into the category of commercial banks nor into the landless group members of a typical microfinance programme.

Farmer Development Loan:
The goal of Farmer Development Loan is to provide financial services to meet the specific needs of small and marginal farmers. Agriculture is backbone of Bangladesh’s economy and to a large extent drives the livelihoods of the poor, either directly or indirectly. Crop diversification, growth in the non-crop sector and maintaining high productivity are therefore of great importance for food security, pro-poor growth and livelihoods of the poor. There is plenty of scope for intervention in agriculture and the introduction of new ideas and enterprises. We provide support to marginal farmers who own more than one acre of land – a group that is not being targeted by the mainstream microfinance programmes. Marginal farmers need loan support for crop production. Grameen Swapna is providing loan support to marginal farmers, loan size ranges from BDT 10,000 to BDT 50,000

Solar Energy Credit:
Grameen Swapna promotes dissemination of solar home system (SHS) in the remote rural areas of Bangladesh through its Solar Energy Credit Program. Grameen Swapna Solar has also been promoting solar energy for rural households who live in the 15,000 villages outside of the national power grid. Through microenterprise loans, villagers choose from a selection of home packages that can provide up to four hours of power each night and are capable of running a television, a couple of light bulbs and mobile phone chargers. The system includes a solar panel, battery, charge controller, inverter, cable, switch, and accessories. Solar Energy Credit Program loan size ranges from BDT 15,000 to BDT 75,000.

Credit Insurance:
All the borrowers of Grameen Swapna are eligible for insurance service. Grameen Swapna introduced insurance policy to ensure safe scheme for the borrowers as well as higher repayment rates. The insurance policy covers the risk of the unwanted death of any borrower. If the deceased has any extra outstanding, the amount can be adjusted from the insured money.

Key Features of Insurance:

•  All the borrowers of Grameen Swapna are eligible for Grameen Swapna’s insurance service.
•  The members having loans with Grameen Swapna are equally eligible for Grameen Swapna’s insurance service.
•  Tk. 0.50 is taken as premium charge from the members. Grameen Swapna pays the insurance money to the nominee from the interest of its credit program.
•  Grameen Swapna’s insurance service provides a capital some of Tk. 5000 to the nominee of the deceased.

Achievement
Our microfinance programme has steadily grown with continued product innovation over the last five years. This growth was achieved mostly through vertical as well as horizontal expansion in terms of providing financial services in existing and new areas within Bangladesh. Formation of new groups of the micro-finance program under the RDP during this reporting period was 320 groups in 2013. Again achievement in this area was also found much poor considering the annual target of 700 groups. On the other hand, Grameen Swapna was supposed to cover 6587  groups under the on-going programs, but a total of 6368 groups were brought under the coverage, which marks about 98% achievement.