As part of Accion Global Advisory Solutions, Sandra was responsible for providing support to microfinance institutions and banks in a range of countries in the region to help them design, implement, and manage their digital financial service channels, including branchless banking, ATMs, mini-branches, mobile banking, and agent networks.
Sandra has more than 25 years of experience in the Financial Sector. She brings expertise in insurance, credit cards, customer service, and channels, and developing and implementing projects related to Call Centers, IVR, Internet Banking, Non-Banking Correspondents, and ATMs.
Sandra is an Economist from Universidad Santo Tomas of Colombia specializing in Finance. She also completed the HBS program &#8211; Strategic Leadership Action in Inclusive Finance. She is certified as a Change Management practitioner by Proci and recently participated in the MIT Leadership in Innovation course.

Former Director, Digital Strategy and Channels

Sandra Calderon

How women entrepreneurs are growing their small businesses using digitally enabled financial tools

Article

Large sunflowers and vivid roses line the sidewalk in front of Paulina’s storefront in Ambato, Ecuador. “I put them out and children began to pass by and would ask for a rose, so I would give them a bouquet,” she said. Soon, more and more people began purchasing her floral arrangements and her business began to take off.

As a single mother of three and an entrepreneur, Paulina’s store is the center of her family’s life and livelihood. “I am a single mother, and they are my life,” she says. “Having this place means there is also a place for my children. They go to their schools and lessons and then they come back and spend time here at the store. They have a place to be.”

Paulina started by selling clothing in her small storefront. She expanded her business and began selling gifts and flowers as more people requested her floral arrangements. To grow her business — the main source of income for herself and her children — she needed capital to invest in her store.

<img class="aligncenter wp-image-27366 size-large" src="https://content.accion.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/paulina-banco-pichincha-ecuador2-1024x682.jpg" alt="Paulina, a small business owner in Ecuador" width="1024" height="682" />

It has always been challenging for small business owners, especially women, to get the support they need to thrive, and the pandemic made everything harder. Paulina recalls that time, saying, “I felt unprotected, had no work, and wasn't able to do anything.” Innovative digital financial tools and services became a lifeline during this uncertain time. These tools helped millions of small business owners improve and grow their businesses by increasing their ability to repay loans and access credit to cover business expenses and inventory needs.

<img class="alignright wp-image-27364" src="https://content.accion.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/paulina-banco-pichincha-ecuador3-636x1024.jpg" alt="Paulina, a small business owner in Ecuador" width="425" height="684" />Digital products can build the financial health of small businesses and empower the women who own them. For Paulina, digital products make it easier to juggle her business and family responsibilities. “The time that it takes to go to a bank, fill out forms, and go with the little ones is slow and tiring for the children as well. But this is not so with digital,” she says. And it’s not just about the convenience — <a href="/the-impact-of-digital-transformation-on-underserved-microbusinesses-findings-from-accions-partnership-with-mastercard" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">from our research, more than 70 percent of women</a> small business owners reported that the financial health of their businesses had improved because of new digital banking products.

<a href="https://www.pichincha.com/portal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Banco Pichincha</a> in Ecuador has been an Accion partner for more than two decades and is the largest financial institution in Ecuador, with a 115-year history. More than half of Banco Pichincha’s customers are women.

Accion worked with Banco Pichincha to drive adoption of the bank’s digital payment wallet, Billetera DeUna. After 12 months of using the DeUna app, <a href="/the-impact-of-digital-transformation-on-underserved-microbusinesses-findings-from-accions-partnership-with-mastercard#2.-digital-products-can-empower-women" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">72 percent of women small business owners</a> surveyed said the product improved their financial health, and 80 percent said they felt less overwhelmed about managing their expenses and debt.“With the development of online and digital credit, the client is able to manage themselves with the help of our credit agents, which allows us to be available at all times,” remarks Beatriz Vazquez, the Microfinance Strategy Manager for Banco Pichincha. “The clients who make use of this credit are usually women because they require greater availability depending on their kind of work.”
<blockquote class="pullquote--right">“I’ve evolved, innovated, and grown. I have invested in things that are very helpful for my business. I feel I am financially sound for my children.”</blockquote>

Now that Paulina has the credit she needs at her fingertips, she is hopeful about the future, saying, “I’ve evolved, innovated, and grown. I have invested in things that are very helpful for my business. I feel I am financially sound for my children.”

Watch how small businesses owners in Ecuador are building their financial health with digital tools:

[embed]https://youtu.be/vM1dZqcL3jY[/embed]

Paulina’s small business blooms in Ecuador

Leonardo Tibaquira

espanol

Caja Bienestar y Caja Popular Cerano aprovecharon las investigaciones, las innovaciones y el conocimiento de los clientes para satisfacer las necesidades de las pequeñas empresas y personas desatendidas
En México, el <a href="http://www.inegi.org.mx/">99 por ciento de todas las empresas son micro, pequeñas y medianas (MIPYME)</a>. Estas empresas contribuyen con el 52 por ciento del PIB y generan el 72 % de los puestos de trabajo. A pesar de su papel crucial en México, <a href="https://read.oecd-ilibrary.org/industry-and-services/financing-smes-and-entrepreneurs-2016_fin_sme_ent-2016-en#page334">menos del 10 por ciento de ellas han recibido un préstamo bancario</a> y no pueden acceder a lo que necesitan para seguir operando en el largo plazo. “Las MIPYME en México no duran mucho: entre dos y cinco años y luego desaparecen”, comenta José Eduardo Ruiz, director comercial de Caja Bienestar, un proveedor financiero en el centro de México.
Desde 2019, Acción se ha asociado con cinco proveedores de servicios financieros en América Latina, con el apoyo de <a href="https://www.metlife.com/about/corporate-responsibility/metlife-foundation/index.html">MetLife Foundation</a>, para desarrollar productos enfocados en la salud financiera que resuelven los problemas que enfrentan las pequeñas empresas, y ayudan a las personas a mejorar sus vidas. En México, trabajamos con Caja Bienestar y Caja Popular Cerano para desarrollar productos innovadores que satisfacen las necesidades de sus clientes. Nuestro enfoque se centró en las personas que utilizan estos productos: sus necesidades, circunstancias, destrezas y aspiraciones.
<a href="https://www.accion.org/how-providers-can-build-products-that-improve-financial-health-examples-from-mexico-and-chile#case-study:-caja-bienestar">Nuestra asociación con Caja Bienestar en Querétaro, México</a>, comenzó con un trabajo de investigación cualitativa en profundidad con propietarios de pequeñas y medianas empresas. Los hallazgos de esa investigación orientaron todos los aspectos del diseño del producto: desde la captación y el marketing hasta la experiencia de usuario y las condiciones de pago.
Frecuentemente, para tratar de vender más, las pequeñas tiendas ofrecen crédito a sus clientes. Muy pronto se encuentran dedicándole más tiempo a manejar las deudas que a ocuparse de sus negocios. Cuando su capital está inmovilizado en créditos, les falta liquidez para pagarles a sus propios acreedores o para reponer su inventario. Sin embargo, José Eduardo no los culpa, señalando que estas empresas son las únicas que les prestan a sus clientes, que dependen de ellas para obtener el crédito que requieren.
“Zapatero a tus zapatos” es el dicho que José Eduardo repite, y que refleja el problema de competitividad que José Eduardo y su equipo observaron sobre lo que funciona mal con las pequeñas empresas. En lugar de centrarse en vender hormigón y materiales de construcción, los <a href="https://www.accion.org/entrepreneurs-get-one-step-closer-to-their-dreams-in-mexico">dueños de pequeñas empresas como Francisco actuaban como prestamistas</a> para sus clientes, y asumían todos los riesgos que ello implica. El equipo de Accion y Bienestar reconoció una oportunidad en la que todos iban a ganar: la cooperativa aportaba su experiencia en materia de préstamos y servía como socio financiero de las pequeñas empresas que ofrecen crédito a sus clientes. Como dice José Eduardo, &#8220;Somos los expertos financieros, así que lo asumimos y el dueño de la empresa puede concentrarse en su trabajo&#8221;. Ahora, Bienestar se asocia con pequeñas empresas para ofrecer crédito a sus carteras de clientes, y los empresarios pueden concentrarse en sus operaciones y, con los fondos que antes utilizaban para otorgar préstamos, los invierten en sus negocios, cancelan deudas o ahorran.
El producto no solo está estructurado en torno a las relaciones y la dinámica características de las pequeñas empresas, sino que Bienestar vela por que la experiencia de usuario resulte agradable y natural para los clientes. Al trabajar con Accion el equipo se dio cuenta de que muchos microempresarios utilizan WhatsApp como herramienta fundamental para sus negocios: hacen pedidos, confirman la recepción e incluso registran quejas a través de la aplicación. Para adaptarse a estos hábitos, el equipo diseñó un bot que imita la experiencia de WhatsApp para que los usuarios puedan liberar los pagos con unos pocos mensajes. La experiencia digital resulta rápida y sencilla para los usuarios, y le ahorra tiempo y esfuerzo a la cooperativa.
Junto con otro socio en México, una cooperativa financiera llamada <a href="https://cpcerano.com.mx/">Caja Popular Cerano</a>, trabajamos para poder llegar a más clientes que se iban a beneficiar de servicios financieros que nunca antes habían utilizado. Descubrimos que los jóvenes dentro de su mercado querían construirse un futuro, pero desconfiaban de los bancos y se estaban endeudando. De hecho, solo el <a href="https://databank.worldbank.org/reports.aspx?source=1228">33 por ciento de la población</a> joven (de 15 a 24 años) en México es cliente de una institución bancaria. Sabíamos que teníamos que hacer las cosas de manera diferente para llegar a los jóvenes, por lo que <a href="https://www.accion.org/how-providers-can-build-products-that-improve-financial-health-examples-from-mexico-and-chile#case-study:-caja-popular-cerano">el equipo creó una aplicación con elementos de juego para que el ahorro fuera accesible a personas de todas las edades</a>. Al fomentar comportamientos financieramente saludables, como el ahorro entre los clientes más jóvenes, Caja Popular Cerano los ayudará a prosperar a lo largo de su vida financiera, comenzando con la aplicación, que puede que sea su primer contacto con una institución financiera.
Estos productos muestran cómo la investigación, la innovación y el conocimiento de los clientes, pueden ser combinados para satisfacer las necesidades de las pequeñas empresas desatendidas, y de las personas que aún no logran el apoyo financiero que necesitan. Como dice José Eduardo, “Si mi trabajo puede generar un impacto, y especialmente si beneficia a la comunidad donde vivo, bueno, esa es mi mayor fuente de inspiración”.

Caja Bienestar and Caja Popular Cerano leveraged customers insights, research, and innovation to meet the needs of underserved small businesses and people

In Mexico, <a href="http://www.inegi.org.mx/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">99 percent of all businesses are micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs)</a>. These small businesses contribute 52 percent of GDP and generate 72 percent of jobs. Although these businesses play a crucial role in Mexico, <a href="https://read.oecd-ilibrary.org/industry-and-services/financing-smes-and-entrepreneurs-2016_fin_sme_ent-2016-en#page334" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">fewer than 10 percent of them have received a bank loan</a> and can’t get what they need to stay open long-term. “MSMEs in Mexico are short-lived. They last about two to five years, and then they fade,” says José Eduardo Ruiz, Commercial Director Caja Bienestar, a financial provider in central Mexico.

Since 2019, Accion has partnered with five financial service providers in Latin America, with support from <a href="https://www.metlife.com/about/corporate-responsibility/metlife-foundation/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">MetLife Foundation</a>, to develop financial health-focused products that solve the problems that small businesses face and help people to improve their lives. In Mexico, we worked with Caja Bienestar and Caja Popular Cerano to build innovative products that meet their customers’ needs. Our approach focused on the people using these products: their needs, circumstances, abilities, and aspirations.

<a href="https://www.accion.org/how-providers-can-build-products-that-improve-financial-health-examples-from-mexico-and-chile#case-study:-caja-bienestar" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Our partnership with Caja Bienestar in Querétaro, Mexico</a>, started with a deep-dive qualitative research effort with small and medium business owners. The findings from that research informed every aspect of the product design, from acquisition and marketing to user experience to payment terms.

Often, small shops will offer to sell products to their customers on credit in an effort to make sales. Fairly soon, they are spending more time and effort managing debt than they are managing their business. When their capital is tied up in credit, they lack the liquidity needed to pay their own debtors, or replenish inventory to stock their shelves. José Eduardo doesn’t fault them though, noting that the customers of these businesses can’t find anyone else who will lend to them; they depend on these businesses to provide the credit they need.

“Zapatero a tus zapatos” is the saying that José Eduardo comes back to, an idiom about competitive advantage that captures what José Eduardo and his team realized was going wrong for small businesses. Rather than focus on selling concrete and construction materials, <a href="https://www.accion.org/entrepreneurs-get-one-step-closer-to-their-dreams-in-mexico" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">small business owners like Francisco were operating as lenders</a> for their customers and taking on all the risk that implies. The Accion and Bienestar team recognized a win-win opportunity: for the coop to bring its financial lending expertise to the table and serve as the financing partner for small businesses looking to offer credit to their customers. As José Eduardo says, “We are the financial experts, so we take that on, and the business owner can focus on his work.” Now, Bienestar partners with small businesses to provide credit to their portfolio of customers. The business owners can focus on their operations and reserve the capital that was previously used for lending to invest in their business, pay off debt, or save.

Not only is the product structured around the real-life relationships and rhythms of small business life, Bienestar has ensured the user experience is comfortable and natural for customers. With Accion, the team realized that many microentrepreneurs utilize WhatsApp as a critical tool for conducting business. They place orders, confirm receipt, and even register complaints via the application. To fit within these habits, the team designed a bot that mimics the WhatsApp experience so that users can release payments with just a few messages. The digital experience is quick and easy for users and saves time and effort for the cooperative.

With another partner in Mexico, a financial cooperative called <a href="https://cpcerano.com.mx/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Caja Popular Cerano</a>, we worked to expand their reach to more customers that would benefit from financial services but haven’t used them before. We found that young people within their market wanted to build their lives and careers but were wary of banks and taking on debt. In fact, only <a href="https://databank.worldbank.org/reports.aspx?source=1228" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">33 percent of the youth population</a> (ages 15-24) in Mexico are clients of a banking institution. We knew we needed to do things differently to reach youth, so <a href="https://www.accion.org/how-providers-can-build-products-that-improve-financial-health-examples-from-mexico-and-chile#case-study:-caja-popular-cerano" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the team created a gamified app that makes saving money accessible for people of all ages</a>. By encouraging financially healthy behaviors like saving in younger clients, Caja Popular Cerano will help customers thrive throughout their financial lives, starting with the app, which may be their first interaction with a financial institution.

These products show how customer insights, research, and innovation can combine to meet the needs of underserved small businesses and people who haven’t been able to get the financial support they need in the past. As José Eduardo says, “If my work can generate an impact — especially if that impact is for the community where I live — well, that is my greatest source of inspiration.”

Behind the innovation in MSME lending in Mexico

Organizame, in partnership with Banigualdad, launches a mobile app that uses gamification to motivate Chilean microentrepreneurs to track their income and expenses digitally 

Mrs. Cecilia is a microentrepreneur who lives in Villa Alemana, Chile with her husband. The couple owns a small shop — known locally as a tienda — where they sell everyday items like food, cleaning supplies, and small gifts. She likes to keep the store stocked with a variety of goods so that customers can find everything they need. While Cecilia knows that the shop is making money, she doesn’t know what her real profits are on a monthly or annual basis. Cecilia’s son has tried to help his parents balance their accounts, but this task has proven difficult because Cecilia and her husband track sales in several different notebooks. When making a sale, they simply reach for the closest notebook and record the item and price sold. Cecilia and her husband’s process is typical of many microentrepreneurs around the world.

While this casual approach to tracking income gets small business owners through the day-to-day, it can hold them back from building their longer-term financial health. Accion is working with our partners to help entrepreneurs like Cecilia and her husband access financial tools that allow them to grow their businesses and stay resilient during hard times.

Small businesses across the globe are feeling the financial crunch from the coronavirus pandemic as customer volumes drop with more and more people staying at home. Times like this underscore the importance of preserving savings, planning for emergencies, and focusing on building greater financial resilience on an ongoing basis. Small businesses are critical drivers of the economy globally and helping them build more financially healthy livelihoods will be a critical component of economic recovery from this crisis.
<h2>A digital path to better financial health</h2>
[caption id="attachment_20843" align="alignleft" width="250"]<img class="wp-image-20843" src="https://content.accion.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/pantalla-resultado-del-mes.png" alt="Organizame's financial app for microentrepreneurs" width="250" height="445" /> The mobile app home screen gives microentrepreneurs a view of their overall end-of-month finances, income, expenses, accounts receivable, and accounts payable.[/caption]

Cecilia is a client of <a href="https://www.banigualdad.cl/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Fundación Banigualdad</a>, a nonprofit foundation in Chile that helps low-income microentrepreneurs to access traditional financial services, giving them greater economic mobility and better equipping them to endure unstable times. In addition to issuing microloans, Banigualdad provides basic training in finance, marketing, sustainability, and business strategy. <a href="https://www.organizame.cl/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Organizame</a>, a Chilean fintech company, seeks to help clients like Cecilia and her husband manage their income through an online financial health tool for small business owners that enables them to track their sales and expenses digitally and issue electronic invoices. The application captures a significant amount of data on merchant revenue streams that financial service providers can use to assess credit capacity and potentially offer more credit at better prices.

When entrepreneurs understand the cash flow of their businesses, they can make more effective and strategic long-term decisions and better prepare for unstable times. Accion is working with Organizame, <a href="/accion-and-metlife-foundation-announce-expanded-partnership-to-advance-financial-inclusion">with support from MetLife Foundation</a>, to tailor their <a href="/achieving-financial-health-in-mexico-and-chile">online business management tool</a> to best serve Banigualdad’s low-income clients and help them to improve their businesses. The mobile app digitizes business operations like cash flow management, bill payment, and credit applications to help entrepreneurs to consolidate business transactions and send electronic documents. The app will build the user's financial health by giving them a tool to calculate and view their profits, monitor their accounts receivable with notifications, learn how to keep their family and business accounts separate, and receive real-time support when they need it.

Through customer interviews, the Organizame and Accion teams learned that microentrepreneurs typically have a handle on their income, often by tracking sales in notebooks, but do not track their expenses in a systematic way. Microentrepreneurs confirmed that an app like Organizame’s would help them to have greater control over their expenses and even help them prepare for low sales months — a critically important task for them to stay resilient in uncertain times.
<h2>Building business management skills through gamification</h2>
[caption id="attachment_20848" align="alignleft" width="250"]<img class="wp-image-20848" src="https://content.accion.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/App-tutorial.png" alt="Organizame's financial app tutorial uses gamification" width="250" height="350" /> “Learn to use this application by completing the following tutorials and accumulating points that you can use to create your virtual business”[/caption]

Despite the microentrepreneurs’ positive response to the app, Organizame knew that the main challenge would be encouraging microentreprenuers to consistently track their sales and expenses in a new digital platform after using notebooks throughout the entire life of their business. Knowing that simply educating entrepreneurs about the benefits of digital tracking would not be effective to change their behavior, the project team developed a game for microentrepreneurs to play within the application that would encourage and incentivize them to register their daily sales and expenses in the platform.

Immediately after downloading the application, users are introduced to a game that simulates a small fictional business. The user earns points as they complete tasks that help them learn how to use the app, like tracking the fictional business’ income and expenses. As users gain points, they can improve the virtual business.

The gamification feature aims to motivate users to register their income and expenses digitally and to educate entrepreneurs on how they can grow their businesses. It walks users through how to log sales by customer and how to keep track of what they owe their suppliers or what is owed to them. This is information that many entrepreneurs keep track of mentally and do not bother writing down. But, having this information in the app will give them a complete, objective picture of their current financial situation. Customers have told us that the app is fun to use and the reminders that pop up once a week are effective in reminding them to keep tracking their information in the app.

Changing people’s behavior is not easy, and the app will continue to evolve to ensure that the game effectively drives entrepreneurs to see the value in digital tracking of their income and expenses. Cecilia has told us that this app will help her family to have greater control over their finances. She is excited about the fact that she and her husband will have aggregated monthly sales and expenses at their fingertips, which will help them to make better and quicker decisions about when to take out credit, how to price products, and what they can be saving on a monthly basis.

Small businesses — the backbone of economies around the world — are more vulnerable than larger companies to financial shocks. By giving microentrepreneurs the tools they need to manage their businesses day-to-day and plan for financial shocks, we can ensure that they are better prepared during unexpected and challenging times and have a path to a better future.

This product is a part of our <a href="/accion-and-metlife-foundation-announce-expanded-partnership-to-advance-financial-inclusion/">Building Financial Capabilities and Strengthening Institutions through Customer-Centered Innovations</a> project, supported by MetLife Foundation.

<img class="wp-image-20867 size-full aligncenter" src="https://content.accion.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/app-examples.png" alt="Organizame's app uses gamification to help entrepreneurs manage money" width="626" height="365" />

The application asks the user if they will accept the following challenge: “Learn how to register your income so that you have better visibility into what you have sold to which customer.” Once completed, they earn 90 points. The user is then shown a list of products that they can purchase with their point balance to improve their virtual business.

Sandra Calderon

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