Partner Mikrokreditna Organizacija


Senad SINANOVIC

15 maj b.b, Trzni Centar Sjenjak
75000 Tuzla - Bosnia Herzegovina
Tel: ++ 387 - 35 300 250
Fax: ++ 387 - 35 300 269
Contact us

www.partner.ba

Partner Microcredit Foundation is a multi-ethnic entity organisation with 59 offices serving over 124 municipalities. Operations began in April 1997 when Mercy Corps’s European affiliate, Mercy Corps/Scottish European Aid, executed an Agency Agreement with the Local Initiative Department (LID). The Economic Development Department of Mercy Corps in Bosnia and Herzegovina was first registered as a local microcredit organisation in December 2000 and began operations as a local entity named Partner in January 2001. The legal structure was changed to a Microcredit foundation in May 2008 for both entities, and Partner is currently operating under the name of Partner Microcredit Foundation.
 
Activities: Partner provides individual loans for registered and unregistered businesses to economically active people who have difficulty in having or do not have access to commercial sources of funding. Clients can be returnees, displaced persons or local residents. Partner currently offers fifteen loan products ranging from small loans for income generation in households, to agricultural loans and business loans as well as loans for farmers and youth and loans for housing purposes. Partner focuses on loans for business purposes, limiting consumption loans to a minimum. It supports microentrepreneurs, promotes participation of women in business and offers easy access to financial services in rural areas. At the end of March 2009, Partner had over 51,000 active clients with an outstanding portfolio over 63 million euros.
 
Methodology: Partner uses an individual loan methodology. Loan officers provide Partner's services in target communities and distribute loan applications personally and through programme presentations and partner offices. On average, it takes 3-5 days from the moment when the client submits all required documentation for the loan to the loan officer to the moment of receiving the loan. When the loan is approved and the contract signed, the client receives the money directly from the local bank or from one of Partner’s teller windows. Partner has fifteen teller windows.
 
Memberships/relationships: Partner is a member of the Microfinance Center for Central and Eastern Europe and the Newly Independent States (NIS) and of the Association of Microfinance Organizations of Bosnia and Herzegovina (AMFO). It was also the implementing partner of the Local Initiatives Project in Bosnia and Herzegovina, sponsored by the World Bank, that continued within the Foundation for Sustainable Development (FSD). Partner is also a participant in the ImpAct Project, financed by the Ford Foundation, that aims to improve microfinance impact assessment methodology and the Imp-Act Consortium, a global Social Performance Measurement programme implemented across institutions.
 
Partner regularly submits its financial data for publication in the MicroBanking Bulletin as well as to the Mix Market (microcredit stock exchange www.mixmarket.org). Partner was also the first microcredit organisation from Bosnia and Herzegovina to become a member of EMN in 2005. Partner is also a member of the Regional Work Group formed within the Southeast European Microcredit Sector whose task within a three-year project named ''Social Performance Management'' is to define social goals and strategies that will assist Partner in evaluating the achievement of its social mission in quantitative terms.