Technical assistance for Amen Bank and MFIs for the development of financial inclusion

Technical assistance program for Amen Bank and the microfinance institutions for the development of financial inclusion in Tunisia.

Amen Bank is positioned as the benchmark banking player in terms of support for the microfinance sector.
The French Development Agency (AFD) aims to promote financial inclusion in Tunisia by enabling Tunisian microfinance institutions to: 1) finance themselves locally under controlled conditions; and 2) innovate in their practices in order to reach more excluded people, particularly in the most disadvantaged areas. The Agency has thus allocated concessional resources to Amen Bank in order to:

• Support Amen Bank in its strategy to finance a sector that is undergoing major restructuring and in a context of growing refinancing needs for MFIs that are not fully covered by the local banking market.
• Encourage MFIs to develop an offer aimed at disadvantaged areas and vulnerable populations, as well as at business creators.

The services provided by HORUS were the following:

• Diagnosis of technical support needs for Amen Bank and its client microfinance institutions
• Review of the digital payment services supply-side and the microfinance institutions’ needs for these services as an input for development by Amen Bank of its own digital payment solution
• Capacity-building at Amen Bank to better manage a portfolio of investments in the microfinance sector (Design of a training program for credit managers, risk managers and commercial staff, design of training material and delivery of learning webinars
• Development of a credit risk assessment tool and an equity investment assessment tool
• Supporting Amen Bank in using data collected from client MFIs to report to AFD on the impact of its lending to these MFIs
• Capacity-building at Amen Bank’s individual client MFIs: delivery of the Technical Assistance at five MFIs in the areas of product development, rural finance, risk management & internal control, credit recovery organization, AML/CFT, and non-financial services to SMEs
• Design and delivery of courses for the MFI sector on AML/CFT, Micro-insurance and Management soft skills