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MCB Talk |Bridging the financial gap
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Who finances those who don’t have access to banking services? The reality of our economic system is unyielding: you may well have the best business idea, but it’s worth nothing if you can’t finance it, and you can’t finance it if you don’t have the required paperwork.
As MCB Microfinance, a subsidiary of MCB Group, marks its 10th anniversary, its CEO, Aurélie Leclezio, reflects on 10 years of helping entrepreneurs who fall outside the traditional banking system turn ideas into livelihoods and opportunities.
Financial inclusion is about empowering people to move away from poverty and towards economic and social empowerment, a key aspect of MCB’s purpose, Success Beyond Numbers.
10 ans auparavant, MCB Microfinance a été établi pour fournir des financements aux entrepreneurs et aux propriétaires de petites entreprises qui n'ont pas accès aux banques traditionnelles, qui servent comme un outil critique pour le développement économique et le changement social. Aujourd'hui, comme MCB Microfinance célébre son 10e anniversaire, nous parlons avec son CEO, Aurélie Leplézio, sur l'impact que l'entreprise sociale a eu sur son clients and on the country.
UNKNOWNI am Deepa and this is MCV Talk.
SPEAKER_01Aurélie,
SPEAKER_03très heureuse que vous puissiez nous rejoindre aujourd'hui. Merci beaucoup d'être là. Merci Deepa, merci beaucoup d'inviter moi. Je suis très heureuse d'être ici aujourd'hui et d'avoir l'opportunité de parler de la microfinance du MCB, spécialement en célébrant ce année
SPEAKER_01notre 10e anniversaire. C'est un milestone, n'est-ce pas
UNKNOWN?
SPEAKER_01Un grand milestone. Donc, souvent... When we think of poverty and exclusion, we think social aid, we think of handouts. But as we know, handouts do not take people out of poverty. They merely relieve the pressure temporarily. Donc aujourd'hui, Aurélie, comme nous marquons le 10e anniversaire de la microfinance de la MCB, et je pense que c'est sûr de dire que l'empowerment et l'inclusion financière peuvent vraiment ouvrir la porte à des opportunités d'avancement souvent dénoncées, trop souvent dénoncées à ceux qui vivent en pauvreté. Et dans la deuxième partie de cette interview, nous allons parler à un de vos anciens clients qui a commencé avec un loyer de la microfinance de la MCB parce que, Il n'était pas qualifié pour un loyer de la banque propre, n'est-ce pas
UNKNOWN?
SPEAKER_01Et qui a aujourd'hui fait si bien qu'il est l'un des clients de MCB Business Banking. C'est génial. C'est incroyable et c'est la preuve de la poudre, n'est-ce pas
UNKNOWN?
SPEAKER_01C'est ce que nous allons parler dans cette interview. Et parce que vous êtes idéalement placé aussi pour faire des témoignages à cela. Et cette journée a vraiment dû être assez émotionnelle, n'est-ce pas
UNKNOWN? Définitivement.
SPEAKER_01But for now, please solve this conundrum for me.
SPEAKER_03How can those who need money the most are the ones that don't have access to it? Yeah. Well, the issue is that people who need financing the most are often also those who cannot meet the standard requirements of traditional banking. For instance, they would not have formal financial statements, they won't have accounting at all, and Et aussi, aucun revenu régulier, suffisamment collatéral.
SPEAKER_01Mais cela m'intéresse pourquoi.
SPEAKER_03Pourquoi est-ce important pour quelqu'un d'avoir des statements bancaires réguliers, par exemple
UNKNOWN?
SPEAKER_03Ce sont les besoins pour le crédit d'une banque. Comme le banquier, il faudrait que vous fournissiez vos statements financiers, collatéraux, la plupart du temps, etc. Donc, c'est le système bancaire qui les exclut. Exactement. Et la plupart de nos clients... They would not work on their bank account. For example, the banker would not be able to see bank inflows, sometimes no inflows at all or irregular inflows. And so the banker would not be able to assess the business based on the transactions on the bank account. So they're basically to assess their capacity to pay back their loan. Exactly. So our clients do not fit the criteria for... traditional banking and most of the time they work with cash in hand, they do not bank. or they don't bank too much or enough. So their profiles would thus not fit the banking criteria and appear much too risky for a traditional banker, even if the loan amount requested, we agree, is micro, very small, but it would appear too risky. Right. So while on the other side, these micro entrepreneurs, many of them have viable activities, many skills, resilience, and strong willingness to work. So what they lack is definitely not ambition most of the time, but access to a financial partner willing to be flexible enough, willing to understand their reality
SPEAKER_01and support them differently. Okay, but so we
SPEAKER_03get a clearer picture, what kind of activities are we talking about here? Well, we are talking about any income generating activity, which is for sure not illegal, but it can be like retail shops, like general stores, tabagis, marchandales pourries, cordonniers, couturiers, well, any income generating activities, some of them are...
SPEAKER_01pour qu'ils aient un partenaire flexible. Donc, si je... get your point. So risk is the main issue. So then does it follow that MCB microfinance is basically taking risks that banks can't take? Well,
SPEAKER_03in a way, yes. But I would not describe it simply as taking risks the bank cannot take. We operate with a different model at MCB microfinance. We operate with a different purpose and thus a specific and different microfinance methodology based on a strong Merci à vous. en
SPEAKER_01faisant notre travail, nous prenons seulement quelques
SPEAKER_03risques calculés. Oh, d'accord. Alors, comment vous gérissez ces risques
UNKNOWN?
SPEAKER_03Eh bien, vous l'avez compris, le management des risques est la chose principale pour nous. Donc, comme je l'ai dit, nous utilisons une méthodologie de microfinance spécifique qui consiste en une proximité forte avec le client et il y a beaucoup de travail de domaine. Donc, cela signifie que nous allons passer beaucoup de temps en visiteant nos clients pour les connaître, Pour les connaître en tant qu'entrepreneurs, mais aussi en tant que personnes, nous allons prendre le temps d'observer et d'entendre leurs activités de business, de discuter avec eux de leurs flux de chômage, parfois même reconstituer leurs flux de chômage, et d'assister à ce que les lois que ils demandent aient généreusement aidé plutôt que de créer une pression supplémentaire. D'accord. Donc, en fait, vous êtes très impliqués dans les vies de ces clients. Exactement. Et même après ce boursement, nous maintenons un contact régulier avec le client. À la fin du jour, notre proximité avec le
SPEAKER_01client est ce qui nous permettra de mitiguer le risque. D'accord. Et parfois, je suppose, si ils viennent à vous et disent « Je voudrais 200 000 rupies pour cela », whatever it is the relationship officers will ask the right questions and then eventually determine whether they believe that money will achieve this objective and if they believe the answer is no then they don't get
SPEAKER_03that money yeah they can not get the money or maybe they will be proposed a reduced amount maybe we will not be keen to finance the whole project but part of it or maybe in a phase approach like maybe we will first Merci à tous. OK.
SPEAKER_01Et en vous écoutant, je comprends maintenant pourquoi nous l'appelons en fait un business social. Ce n'est pas du
SPEAKER_03banquier du tout, c'est ce que vous faites
UNKNOWN?
SPEAKER_03Ce n'est pas du banquier du tout. Nous sommes un business social. Cela signifie aussi qu'un business social n'est pas une charité. Ce n'est pas une question de donner de l'argent. Nous avons un modèle de business spécifique et nous devons être financièrement sustainables, bien sûr, en adressant social challenge and in our case that challenge is financial exclusion so our objective as a company is to provide access to finance to people who are often outside the traditional system banking system and so we have also to do it responsibly with the objective of empowering them and not on adding any additional indebtedness
SPEAKER_01pressure on them
SPEAKER_03can be a huge
SPEAKER_01risk actually. Exactly. We have to be very responsible when granting a loan. Again, I'm listening to you and I'm thinking but why? So let's go back for some context. Why? Because it's such a great thing, right? So why was it important for MCB to engage in a social business? How important is it for the
SPEAKER_03local economy? Yeah. So definitely MCB microfinance was created as a social responsibility initiative of the MCB group. For MCB, it was very important because financial inclusion is part of the role a bank can play in society. As I said, not everyone is immediately bankable in the traditional sense, but that does not mean that they should be excluded from economic opportunity. Micro and small entrepreneurs do contribute to employment, local production, services and community life in general. So, by supporting them as a group, we are supporting livelihoods, we are supporting families, and more broadly, a more inclusive local
SPEAKER_01economy. In the most direct way, in fact, huh?
UNKNOWNOkay, but...
SPEAKER_01So, ten years down the line, what would the situation be had MCB Microfinance not existed these past ten years? What other organizations or institutions provide support and empowerment to people who live in poverty
SPEAKER_03and who don't have access to finance? Yeah. There are, of course, several organizations doing meaningful work to support vulnerable groups and entrepreneurs, including NGOs, public institutions and development programs. But without MCB microfinance, there would have been one less bridge between informal or very small economic activities and the formal financial sector. So I guess that over the past 10 years, we have helped give financial access to many entrepreneurs who might otherwise have remained unsupported or remained dependent on
SPEAKER_01informal financing yeah ok and you
SPEAKER_03don't want to open that door of informal financing right well I think that it is not really convenient for these people who would use informal financial assistance they are not sure when they will get their money back and they fall prey to loan sharks as well I imagine right yeah sometimes they find themselves in really uncomfortable situations they feel a lot of pressure
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it must be awful not to be able to know which doors to knock on if you have an idea, but you can't finance it. Do you guys, does microfinance also finance like startups? Do you do that a lot?
SPEAKER_03Exactly. At the beginning, when we created the company in 2016, we were not financing startups. We were financing only businesses with at least one year of existence. But after the first lockdown in 2020 and exactly in October 2020 we found that it was something we had to do because many people they had lost their employment in the tourism sector for example and many people wanted to start something to be able to manage their lives so in October 2020 we decided pour créer une startup, pour lancer Startup Learn. Donc, nous avons... limited amount, we will finance startups only up to 200,000 rupees. But if you want to start, for example, a bullet business, you can do it. What's a bullet business? Like, so my... Oh, oh, bullet! And for many businesses, you don't need to invest that much, but you need to invest in a minimum of raw materials or a minimum of equipment, a minimum of stock, and with our startup loan, you can do that. If your project, your idea is genuine, and if you are yourself genuine as an entrepreneur, with the willingness to do the necessary efforts, and sometimes the necessary sacrifices, because when you are an
SPEAKER_01entrepreneur, you have to do it. It's true, now that you're saying it, after COVID, we saw... driving past, you would see lots of people from out of their kitchen, like starting to cook food to sell to other people. And I imagine that must be quite common in terms of requests for microfinance.
SPEAKER_03Exactly. I think you have seen some of our
SPEAKER_01clients, maybe. Probably. And, well, in an ideal world, right, so microentrepreneurs who start with you, they move up the ladder, and eventually, if everything goes well, they become clients of the Because now they have
SPEAKER_03formal statements,
SPEAKER_01etc. They've been well trained by your people.
SPEAKER_03But does that happen a lot? Well, it does happen, and we can only be proud of that. This would mean that their businesses have grown sufficiently, that they have been able to formalize, strengthen their records, and eventually, they have become big and well-organized enough to have access to mainstream banking solutions but I would say that not every client will follow that Sous-titrage Société Radio-Canada ou peut-être que maintenant une famille étendue est capable de vivre de l'entreprise comparée à avant. Nous voyons différents types de succès, mais ce qui est le plus important pour nous, c'est qu'à la fin du jour, en facilitant l'accès au crédit, nous avons permis aux entrepreneurs micro-entrepreneurs de faire certaines décisions et d'investir, qui, j'espère, ont impacté positivement sur leur entreprise et éventuellement sur leurs familles. standard of living.
SPEAKER_01I love that you say that and thank you for pointing out that success has many forms. It's not just like going up. Bigger and bigger, this is not success. Absolutely. But that said, what is the biggest obstacle to those clients not going
SPEAKER_03up that ladder, let's say? Well, I would say that the biggest obstacle is often formalization. Many people les micro-entrepreneurs sont très bons à ce qu'ils font, mais ils ne peuvent pas être bien organisés. Ils ne peuvent pas garder de bons records. Ils ne peuvent pas séparer leur entreprise et leurs finances personnelles. Ils ne peuvent pas planifier leur flux de chômage suffisamment. Et aussi, c'est bon de noter que le développement apporte aussi de nouveaux défis. Vous allez devoir être capable de gérer votre stock, peut-être gérer your employees tax obligations administrative requirements so our role as we understand it is therefore not only to finance but also to encourage better
SPEAKER_01financial discipline ok ok that's very clear and we will be speaking to one of those success stories for a former client of yours next so that he can talk to us about his journey from microfinance to business banking but before we go Aurélie,
SPEAKER_03quelle est la histoire qui t'a touchée le plus dans ces 10 dernières années
UNKNOWN?
SPEAKER_03souvent, les femmes entrepreneurs, elles viennent à nous avec très peu de confiance, parfois après de répétées refusées ailleurs, et elles réalisent progressivement que leurs activités ont de la valeur, et voir quelqu'un bouger de la mode de survie, comme on peut le dire, à la planification, à l'investissement, à l'employement parfois d'autres, ou à l'amélioration de la qualité de vie de leurs familles, c'est ce qui me
SPEAKER_01meaning to our work. That's
SPEAKER_03beautiful. Aurélie, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us.
SPEAKER_01Thank you so much, Deepa. Sellers of boulettes and other informal eateries may well seem to be the typical customers of MCB Microfinance by the nature of their business. But make no mistake, these are certainly not the only kinds of activities that MCB Microfinance supports. Ulrich von François's story is a case in point. So a self-employed photographer and videographer, he relies on the right equipment for his trade. But what do you do when you don't have the funds to finance
SPEAKER_00your state-of-the-art tool? I started with microfinance in 2021. We were in COVID. Et il n'y avait pas de financement pour acheter d'autres équipements. Et j'ai contacté Microfinance pour acheter mon drone. Parce qu'il y avait beaucoup de contrats qui arrivaient. Donc j'ai besoin de mon drone pour coudre tous ces événements. Donc j'ai décidé d'aller à Microfinance parce que j'ai besoin de plus de fonds pour acheter plus d'équipements. Et comment ça fonctionne
UNKNOWN?
SPEAKER_00Vous allez
SPEAKER_01et vous expliquez ce que vous voulez faire et quelle est leur réaction
UNKNOWN?
SPEAKER_01Comment ils processent votre J'ai
SPEAKER_00été choqué parce que, comparé à d'autres banquiers, ils étaient flexibles. Parce que quand tu leur dis que tu veux faire ça, ça, ça, ils disent, OK, on peut te financer. C'était très facile comparé à d'autres. OK. Donc, j'ai dit, oh, wow, c'est si facile avec Microfinance. OK. Et nous... Normalement, ils ne donnent pas de garantie ou quelque chose comme ça. Ils ne requièrent pas de garantie, oui. Ils ne
SPEAKER_01requièrent pas de garantie comme ça. Et ils vont directement. Et j'ai reçu mes fonds une semaine après et c'était si facile, si flexible. OK. Et puis après ça, évidemment, vous achetez votre équipement, vous réussissez à réparer le loyer.
SPEAKER_00Et puis, combien de temps après, ouvrez-vous un compte d'entreprise avec une banque
UNKNOWN?
SPEAKER_00Après un ou deux mois, j'ouvre mon banquier d'entreprise. OK. And then things went very easy and... So you did very well, because that's very fast.
SPEAKER_01OK. Yeah. But would you say that without that initial capital... de Microfinance, tu ne serais pas où
SPEAKER_00tu es aujourd'hui. À quel point ça t'a vraiment aidé dans ta carrière
UNKNOWN?
SPEAKER_00C'était comme une startup. Ça m'a vraiment aidé à grandir parce que Microfinance m'a vraiment aidé à débuter mon entreprise. Et sans ça, je ne pense pas que je pourrais aller si loin sans ce fonds. Donc, ça commence vraiment avec ce
SPEAKER_02fonds et maintenant je suis
SPEAKER_00ici. I created my business banking. I invest in more equipments because it's not my first. I took like free loan with
SPEAKER_01them. So just to understand, so does that happen, like have you been back and forth or those were what you asked for the first time you contacted Microfinance? My question is, can you be a client of MCB Business Banking and then go back to Microfinance to... Yes, you can. Oh, you can, okay. That's amazing. So tell us now about what is it that you do. So now, so you can have a success... carrière en tant qu'entrepreneur, propriétaire d'entreprise, en faisant ce que vous faites, en créant des contenus. C'est la nouvelle génération de professionnels. Donc, dites-nous un peu de votre
SPEAKER_00travail. Donc, mon travail est de promouvoir, de capturer. Ça dépend de ce que je fais, comme dans les mariages, c'est de capturer le moment, capturer le sentiment, capturer l'émotion. Pour les entreprises, c'est de promouvoir l'entreprise. Et puis, créer du contenu pour le plaisir, comme pour promouvoir Mauritius, pour montrer la beauté de Mauritius. Et c'est ce que j'aime, ce que je fais. C'est juste donner une autre image de... the company, the landscape or whatever.
SPEAKER_01Wonderful. Ulrich, thank you very much for taking the time to talk to us and we wish you the very best.
UNKNOWNThank you very much. Thank you for listening. Bye bye.