Mintos resumes the onboarding of new partners and welcomes Podemos Progresar, a lending company from Mexico. The company specializes in microfinance and offers group microcredits (personal loans to more than one person).
All of Podemos Progresar’s clients are women who use loans to support the growth of their self-employment or small businesses, that way fostering the development of the communities around them. The unique feature of these loans is that a group of 10-20 people cross-guarantee each other’s repayments, helping Podemos Progresar maintain a historical low risk portfolio (less than 6% of all issued loans are past due, as of September 2020).
Podemos Progresar’s major shareholder is Stelac Capital Partners – a venture capital investment platform from New York led by investment professionals with a background in financial institutions like Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, Bankers Trust and JP Morgan Chase. The company was established in 2007 and, to date, has invested over $ 120 million in a diversified portfolio of companies ranging from startups to mature private equity companies, among them – Spotify, LendingClub, ShareShack and SpaceX. They invested $3 million in Podemos Progresar as part of their “Long Term Build-Up” core strategy aiming for a 7-10+ years investment period.
Since its foundation in 2010, Podemos Progresar has grown to a team of over 250 employees and over 30,000 clients. As of September 30, 2020, Podemos Progresar’s net loan portfolio had reached EUR 6.3 million.
View Podemos Progresar’s financial report
Podemos Progresar on Mintos
| Annual interest rate | Up to 12% |
| Average loan amount | € 2600 |
| Average loan term | 4 months |
| Mintos Risk Score | 7 |
| Buyback guarantee | Yes |
| Average default rate | 1% |
The company has multi-layered risk controls that not only focus on thoroughly assessing the risk of each loan but also have preventive measures built into the system. For example, returning clients have to go through additional pre-screening (including their business need for financing, their cash flows and other) to qualify for bigger loans. Such rules have been part of Podemos Progresar operations from day one, and were a contributing factor to the companies’ ability to respond successfully to the global economic crisis and borrowers’ ability to repay loans. In fact, in the past months Podemos Progresar has benefited from the growth in demand from its loans while also being able to successfully screen viable loan applications. This strict screening process has allowed the company to sustain its considerable 50% annual portfolio growth while maintaining loan performance for over 10 years.
A full EUR/MXN exchange hedge will be provided by Kantox.
Fernando Orta Martinez, the founder and CEO of Podemos Progresar, has gained a reputation for the maintained level of excellence of operation and innovative business model earning him different national and international awards like EY’s Entrepreneur of the Year. “We are thrilled to be joining other innovative companies in the Mintos Platform. Joining Mintos will allow us to continue to grow our customer base and positively impact our clients and their businesses so that their families can have better lifes’ and access to more opportunities.” says Fernando. The company is Fernando’s biggest passion – he envisions it as a world-class company in the making, and sees Mintos as a strategic partner to achieve this vision.
In the period from March 2020 till today, time of the pandemic peak and aftermath of the commonly known first wave, the company reports a sustainable business operation without losses, and did not issue loan extensions or restructurings of debt for their clients. In fact, the volume of current loans in Podemos Progresar portfolio today remains above 95% of all portfolios while the normalcy of new issued loans is above 99% speaking of the strength in its processes.
How to invest in Podemos Progresar loans
Loans issued by Podemos Progresar will be added to the Diversified and Conservative strategies. If you want to invest in these loans with a custom automated strategy, make sure to adjust your strategy settings. If you’re investing manually, you can filter the loans on the Primary Market.
