Lack of access to useful and affordable financial products and services that meet the needs of clients is regarded as one of the most important constraints to the development and growth of businesses in low-income countries.
This includes transactions, payments, savings, credit and insurance products, and the way these are delivered to the clients. Increasing access to, and use of, financial products and services also contributes to household resilience by enabling saving and the possibility of sourcing emergency funding. Contributing to increased Financial inclusion is therefore a key priority for Norfund.
Impact in 2023
new clients served by portfolio companies
increase in lending to clients by portfolio companies
Norfund’s impact objectives
Norfund has the following impact objective for investments in financial institutions:
- Increasing the provision of financial services
- Increasing the provision of credit to clients
This enables economic growth and job creation in low- and middle-income regions and helps to improve living standards.
Results 2023
Increased provision of financial services
The investments in Norfund´s portfolio provided financial services to around 121 million clients in total in 2023.
Portfolio companies with two consecutive years of reporting increased the total number of clients by 11.5 million (13 % growth) during 2023.
Increased provision of credit to clients
The combined loan book of all Norfund´s investments in financial service providers reached a total of NOK 729 billion by the end of 2023. Companies with two consecutive years of reporting increased their credit provision by NOK 56 billion (9.4% growth) during the year.
The total number of loans provided to clients by the investments in our portfolio was 32 million. This is an increase from last year, where 28.6 million loans were provided to clients. The loans provided by portfolio companies in 2023 includes 17.5 million loans to retail clients, 7.9 million loans to microfinance clients and 2.6 million loans to SMEs clients.
NOK in combined loan book
Increase in credit provision since 2023*
*For companies with two consecutive years of reporting
Increased provision of deposits
Some of our portfolio companies offer customers the option to accumulate savings in deposits accounts. A total of 69 million deposits at a combined value of NOK 762 billion were held by the portfolio companies be end of 2023. Of the NOK 762 billion held in deposits, NOK 270 billion were savings held by retail and microfinance clients. Portfolio companies with two consecutive years of reporting saw an increase in the total value of deposits held by clients by 44 billion, yielding a 10% growth during 2023.