United Coconut Planters Bank joins microfinance b

UCPB has expanded its mirco-finance lending program by launching recently a new P50-million initiative focusing on wives of small coconut farmers.

UCPB chairman and chief executive officer Jeronimo U. Kilayko said the bank’s subsidiary UCPB Rural Bank has so far released half a million pesos in loans to finance the micro enterprises of 112 individuals, mostly housewives, in Sogod, Leyte, where the new program is being pilot-tested.

"Our goal is to reach out to 10,000 coconut farming households in the next five years, and turn them into a two-income family so they can raise their standard of living. We have allocated P50-million for this program," Kilayko said.

The new UCPB initiative is being handled by the UCPB-CIIF Finance and Development Corp. The company was organized in 1995 to administer the UCPB Group’s main micro-finance activity known as the Countryside Economic Development Program or CEDP.

Kilayko said the CEDP, which is being implemented in 20,026 coconut producing barangays across the country, has granted more than half a billion pesos in subsidized credit to 849 accredited farmers cooperatives for relending to their members since its start. The cooperatives have a total membership of 162,000 coconut farmers.

"Our experience with CEDP, where loan repayment rate has reached a high of 97 percent, gives us the confidence to go into microfinance venture at the grassroots level," Kilayko added.

UCPB’s new microfinance venture follows the Grameen model in which housewives are organized into groups of five to seven people. The group serves as guarantor of the loans of the individual members. Under the program, the individual members can borrow from P1,000 to P10,000 payable weekly within a period of from three months to nine months.