Building on its recent entry and growth in mortgage and micro, small, and medium-sized enterprise (MSME) lending, Banco Ficohsa— Honduras’ largest locally owned commercial bank—is assessing its experience and the Honduran market to identify opportunities for profitable growth.

Working with the bank, DAI is studying the segmentation of the enterprise and residential mortgage markets, and assessing Banco Ficohsa’s capacity to better serve these segments. Our advisors are also designing a plan to improve Banco Ficohsa’s strategic focus in the highest-potential segments and its product offerings; marketing and sales strategies; policy guides, manuals, and procedures; staffing, organizational structure, and skills; cost management; and support systems.

Once the improvement plan is complete, DAI will prepare and help Banco Ficohsa implement an action plan that encompasses:

Educating the organization on upcoming improvements to policies, plans, and procedures;

Developing more responsive yet standardized products, with training for staff and marketing strategies to reach out to key audiences;

Preparing manuals and processes that incorporate the improved policies and product lines;

Training credit officers, risk analysts, and supervisors in sound MSME and home financing practices;

Providing human resources support to recruit staff who specialize in MSME and home financing;

Creating new lending products for home financing that cover construction, mortgage, and home improvement loans, as well as developing further strategies for penetrating the housing market; and

Implementing best practices in mortgage and home improvement loan origination and administration, supported by IFC’s mortgage tool kit.

This project is part of the IFC Latin America and Caribbean MSME Finance Technical Assistance Facility. The IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, promotes sustainable economic growth in developing countries by financing private sector investment, mobilizing private capital in local and international financial markets and providing advisory and risk mitigation services to business and governments.

To address the financing needs of MSMEs in Latin America and Caribbean, IFC launched in July 2007 a joint investment-advisory services program aimed at enhancing the capacity of financial institutions to provide financial services to such enterprises.