Background & mission
Certified with the European Commission's Code of Good Conduct for Microcredit Provision, NOA is the direct result of a donor-supported non-profit microfinance project aiding the most vulnerable areas and populations of Albania, particularly rural ones, with the objective to boost the transition towards a free and competitive market economy following the end of the communist regime. The project started in 1998 under the name of "Albanian Partner in Microcredit". It preserved its non-profit status until 2007 when it was officially licensed by the Central Bank of Albania as a Non-Bank Financial Institution.
With this new status, the project started to implement higher regulatory requirements increasing significantly its market coverage, its financial performance ratios and managerial standards. Due to these positive results, the initiative gained in independence by successfully overcoming its donors-backed project status. For the first time in Albania, a microfinance institution would be transferred to a fully owned foreign shareholder: NOA Holdings N.V. It is at this specific moment that NOA got his current nomination and ownership structure as an independent financial institution owned by private capital. Due to this legacy, NOA kept a constant focus into supporting socially-driven investment projects that were promoting job-creation, youth & women professional insertion, farmers' modernisation, environmental-friendly businesses, artisanal renewal, etc. that wouldn't be funded otherwise by the banking sector due to their lack of collateral and informal business status.
Innovation was also a key element serving as a solid ground for NOA's market expansion and institutional consolidation. NOA was the first Albanian MFI to introduce mobile tablet banking technologies with the objective to ease and accelerate the funding process for remote entrepreneurs and farmers. NOA has also introduced, in parallel to a performing call-center, new communication technologies allowing its beneficiaries to apply for online funding and benefiting a higher customer service quality.