Business Development Services

CARD has already achieved success at the level of microfinance that it is at at the moment. It is already the largest microfinance bank and has, by far, the biggest number of clients among microfinance institutions in the country. It has already established its expertise and can just keep on expanding at this level. Why does it want to go the next level of microenterprise? What is the strategic value of this new endeavor to CARD?

1. Institutionally: BDS is the next frontier in CARD’s vision of “provid[ing] continued access to integrated microfinance and special development services … to an expanding membership base… �. The long-term impact of CARD’s microfinance services to its clients will depend on complementary services (like BDS) that it will provide to them, in expanding and making their businesses more sustainable.

2. From a poverty reduction perspective, BDS is the fulfillment of microfinance’s promise to liberate the poor from poverty because it provides the opportunities to make the micoentrepreneurs’ business more sustainable and to become part of the mainstream economy. On their own, microentrepreneurs would have difficulty penetrating the mainstream market. Finally, studies have shown that microenterprises are quite vulnerable unless they are able to reach a certain level of financial viability. BDS can help them reach this level.

3. From an economic development perspective, microentrepreneurs are at the bottom of the value chain. Our competitiveness as a country can be greatly enhanced if microenterprises become more productive and efficient because they supply the raw materials and basic components of some of the most critical industries in the country. Additionally, microenterprises are at the bottom of the economic pyramid which constitutes a large segment of the economy which is yet untapped and undeveloped. BDS can potentially address these concerns.

The BDS Center will be CARD’s main vehicle in delivering its business services to its intended clients. It will be the newest addition to the CARD-MRI group of institutions which takes CARD’s mission of “build[ing] sustainable financial and capacity building institutions owned and led by socially and economically challenged families� to the next level.

Given the nature of its current operations, CARD’s BDS Center (BDSC) will serve two markets. Its primary clients are the successful microentrepreneurs who are ready and willing to expand their business. The other client of BDSC is the member institutions of the ever-growing CARD-MRI group. CARD’s current level of operation has reached a level where it has economies of scale in both its clients and in the operation of its member institutions. As the number of CARD clients increase, so does the level of operation of its member institutions. The accumulation of CARD clients creates tremendous opportunities for the delivery of additional services that will improve their lives. Such opportunities come in the form of both social as well as business services. The effective delivery of such services will demand greater efficiency among CARD institutions. Managing the synergy between the effective and efficient delivery of services to clients and seizing the business opportunities created in the process shall be the main concern of BDSC.