Ask a small business owner in Colombia what is holding them back from growing, and the answer is often a piece of equipment: an industrial oven, a dental chair, a delivery truck, a printing press. A new machine would pay for itself within a year or two, but the problem is paying for it up front. Across Latin America and the Caribbean, micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) face an estimated $1.8 trillion financing gap. Banking systems are concentrated, collateral requirements are rigid, and formal credit histories are rare among entrepreneurs who operate largely outside traditional financial channels.

In Colombia alone, FinMaq estimates the demand for productive-asset financing at roughly $1.3 billion. Most of it goes unmet — not because the businesses are bad credit risks, but because they are not positioned to lend against what they actually want to buy.

FinMaq, Accion’s latest investment in Colombia, works to close this gap by financing productive machinery for MSMEs directly at the point of sale. Through its partnerships with distributors, the company uses proprietary scoring models, digital onboarding, and other tools to deliver credit, rent-to-own, and hybrid financing tailored to the productive economy.

Solving pain points across the equipment ecosystem

FinMaq’s customers are the small and mid-sized businesses that make up the backbone of Colombia’s productive economy: workshops, clinics, transport operators, food producers, and light manufacturers. They tend to be established and serious about growth. The typical client already employs three people, and most independent operators use electronic invoicing. What they lack is a lender willing to look at the machine rather than the credit file.

For 72 percent of FinMaq’s clients, the company represents their first experience with this kind of financing — a figure that rises to 83 percent among sole proprietors and self-employed workers. Thirty-five percent of clients say it would be extremely difficult to find a comparable source of funding elsewhere.

The other side of the market has its own friction. Machinery distributors want to sell equipment, but they are not lenders, and their customers frequently cannot pay cash. FinMaq resolves both problems at once by sitting between them: approving the customer, disbursing funds directly to the distributor, and taking the financing burden off the seller.

Distributor partnerships as the gateway to small businesses

Rather than competing for customers through advertising, FinMaq embeds itself where the buying decision already happens. More than 56 machinery distributors across Colombia now offer FinMaq financing at the point of sale, so credit arrives at the exact moment an entrepreneur is deciding whether they can afford the equipment.

Funds go straight to the distributor rather than the borrower, which ensures the money is spent on the productive asset it was approved for.

Scaling impact across Colombia’s productive economy

FinMaq generates measurable economic impact by enabling MSMEs to acquire productive machinery that directly improves business performance, income, and employment. A 2025 independent study by 60 Decibels found that 83 percent of surveyed FinMaq clients reported higher productivity after acquiring their equipment, which translated into higher earnings. Sixty-eight percent attribute most or all of their business growth to FinMaq’s financing.

Those gains show up in jobs. The median client went from three employees to five after financing, and 38 percent of businesses expanded their workforce outright. Roughly 70 percent of surveyed clients reported an improvement in their quality of life, and 86 percent said their outlook for the business has improved, with more than half of them saying it’s “very much” improved.

The reach is also broader than the usual fintech footprint: 40 percent of FinMaq’s clients are based in rural areas, in segments that concentrated banking systems have historically passed over.

We believe Accion’s investment and strategic support will help FinMaq deepen its distributor network, expand its product range, and strengthen the funding structures that allow it to lend at scale. We are excited to work with FinMaq as it continues to put productive assets — and the growth they unlock — within reach of small businesses across Colombia.