A Tale of Four Village Banking Programs: Best Practices in Latin America

This paper examines each major element of the village banking technology and how it has been liberalized so far, particularly in four leading Latin American village banking institutions: FINCA Nicaragua, Pro Mujer Bolivia, Compartamos (in Mexico), and CRECER (in Bolivia). It then analyzes how this liberalization process may be usefully carried forward in the future and makes numerous best practice and policy recommendations to achieve this. Much of the study is devoted to deriving and discussing best practice and policy recommendations.