Lessons learnt during the visit

• One of Permicro’s mission is to enhance the financial inclusion of its customers, namely to
  help them access to banking services. This is why i) they are serving a clientele, which is
  slightly different from that of Adie and ii) they actively promote the services of their
  banking partners: checking & saving accounts, means of payement, insurance products,
  “Satispay”, etc.
• Banking partnerships : At Permicro, 20% of customers are deferred by partner banks. This
  is the result of a development strategy launched 2-3 years ago: To increase microloans
  ceiling and reach out a different type of clientele (less vulnerable yet without access to
  banking loans) To achieve this, Permicro has changed its recruitment & induction process
  as well as its management and opertional schemes in order to make sure loan officers
  develop close relationship with partner banks: approach methodology & speech, at least 2
  days of presence per week in banking partners premises. Also, Permicro has revisited its
  implantation strategy on the Italian territory: 80% of its branches are hosted by BNL.
• Migrants target population: 24% of Permicro’s business clients are migrants and 91% of
  Permicro’s personal clients are migrants. This market penetration is very impressive. Part
  of the explanation is that Perrmicro can finance personal projects (home construction,
  etc.) in the country of origin. To mitigate credit risk, Permicro only finances migrants clients
  if they have an open-ended labour contract (personal loans). In addition to the guarantor,
  the loan officer also asks for 2 referents + a contact person in their home country. Finally
  in order to foster Permicro’s visibility within migrants’ communities and build trust,
  Permicro can sponsor some social events.
• 6-month rule : following a payment incident, the customer must reimburse its microcredit
  for 6 months without experiencing any payment incident in order to qualify for refinancing
• Personal loans: They only finance people with permanent contracts as there is no social
  income in Italy.