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.
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.
Impact in 2024
new clients served by portfolio companies
increase in lending to clients by portfolio companies
The performance against the impact objectives is calculated based on companies with two consecutive years of reporting. The increased number of clients in the portfolio of 14.6 million constitute a growth of 13 % in 2024. Companies with two consecutive years of reporting increased their credit provision by NOK 37.4 billion (4.7% growth) during the year.
Increased provision of financial services and credit to clients
In total the investments in Norfund´s portfolio provided financial services to around 134 million clients in 2024. 75 % of these clients are in Africa, 17 % in Asia and 8 % in Latin America.
The combined loan book of all Norfund´s investments in financial service providers reached a total of NOK 1094 billion by the end of 2024. The total number of loans provided to clients by the investments in our portfolio was 37.5 million. This is an increase compared to last year, where 32 million loans were provided to clients. Additionally, Norfund’s investments offered around 107 million clients with deposit accounts.