Strengthening financial inclusion and women’s entrepreneurship in Peru

DEG is providing financing to Caja Arequipa, Peru's leading municipal savings bank. The USD 50 million loan will strengthen the institution's capital base and support the sustainable expansion of financing for micro and small enterprises, with a particular focus on underserved customers and women-owned businesses. This marks DEG's first transaction with a savings bank in Peru.

Founded in 1986, Caja Municipal de Ahorro y Crédito Arequipa S.A. (Caja Arequipa) has grown from a regional financial institution into a nationwide provider of financial services. It is now Peru's seventh-largest financial institution and its largest non-bank financial institution.

Caja Arequipa's business model focuses on people and businesses that have limited access to traditional banking services. Its customers include micro and small enterprises, entrepreneurs and households in rural areas and underserved urban communities.

One of the entrepreneurs financed by Caja Arequipa is Leonidas Chipana, a biochemist based in San Ramón in the tropical highlands of eastern Peru. He first received financing from the bank in 2013 to develop his emerging fertiliser business. Since then, the business has grown, enabling him to diversify into ecotourism. He has established a mountain lodge that is managed in line with sustainability and resource-efficiency principles and complemented by reforestation activities.