Chevron Helps Grameen Enter California Market

February 19, 2011

The California-bases oil company, Chevron Corporation, has committed $1 million to Grameen America to help fund the launch of Grameen's first West Coast branch, in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Once open for business, Grameen America execs expect the new bank Bay Area branch to dispense more than $300,000 in microloans to as many as 250 area borrowers during its first year alone.

"The economic slowdown has made it especially difficult to secure funding for Bay Area small businesses and entrepreneurs, often a catalyst for job creation and economic growth for the state," said Stephen Vogel, CEO of Grameen America.

Grameen opened its first U.S. bank in 2008, in the Queens section of New York City; it has since opened another branch in New York as well as one in Omaha. To date, Grameen reports it has funded 5,000 U.S. borrowers with more than $13 million in microloans, which works out to an average loan of about $1,500.

Grameen America provides microloans to help aspiring entrepreneurs start or expand their small business, establish savings and develop credit by following the group lending and savings model that has been developed and refined over 30 years by the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh. Based on a peer-group system in which members encourage, support and learn from each other, the Grameen America model also incorporates asset building into all loan relationships so that members can build financial resources for the future.

There are nearly four times as many individual bank loans to adults in the developed world as there are in developing countries (0.82 vs. 0.22)

_-CGAP