Financiera Contigo (CEGE Capital), a lending firm doing business in Mexico, will provide investment opportunities on Mintos with interest rates of “up to 12% per annum.”
Financiera Contigo was founded in 2010 by two brothers Allan and Emilio Cherem, who were “nominated by Forbes for Mexico’s ’30 under 30′ in 2017.”
At present, the firm has around 2 500 employees, 170 branches and “around 200 000 active clients.” It has a total net loan portfolio of over €45 million (as of the end of February 2022), and is now “one of the largest and most well-known microfinance companies in Mexico.”
Its main product – group loans – “is focused on supporting women with self-employment and small businesses.” In this type of loan, “a group of at least 8 people cross-guarantee each other’s repayments.”
As a result, it also helps Financiera Contigo keep “a low-risk portfolio resulting in a non-performing loans (90 DPD) rate of around 2% (as of February 2022 ).”
Until late 2020, the company had been “developing its Conmigo Vales voucher-loans product which launched on Mintos in August 2021 as a standalone company.” Financiera Contigo is also “providing a group guarantee to Conmigo Vales.”
Contigo offers “an array of financial products to communities that lack access to the general banking system, with a special focus on improving the lives of women entrepreneurs and their families – all while generating positive employee, shareholder and supplier relationships.”
When Financiera Contigo enters a community, its financial advisors “conduct outreach to inform potential customers about its products and educate them on personal finance management to mitigate the risk of over-indebtedness.”
Upon approval, branch managers “visit customers on-site and disburse loans through debit cards or money orders.” Financial advisors then “meet with customers each week to provide support with loan management and repayment.”
The Mintos Risk Score for loans issued by Financiera Contigo “is 6, with the subscores of 6 for loan portfolio performance, 6 for loan servicer efficiency, 7 for buyback strength, and 4 for cooperation structure.”
The security consists of “a direct loan assignment complemented by an extra layer of pledges over loans listed on Mintos, which will be established to secure investor claims.”
Then notably, there will also be “a third-party trust provider responsible for securing the cash flows incoming from Mintos-funded loans’ repayments.”
The trust administrator ensures that they “are legally separated and Mintos is the first beneficiary of the repayments coming from particular loan agreements.”
So, for instance, “in the unlikely case of Financiera Contigo’s default, Mintos would immediately inform the trust administrator to redirect all borrower repayments directly to Mintos account, and only the remaining amounts, after all Mintos claims are satisfied, would go to the lending company itself.”
As soon as the Master Trust account for investors on Mintos is finalized, “the cooperation structure subscore will be improved to 8.”
Allan Cherem, CEO of Financiera Contigo, stated:
“Contigo is thrilled to join Mintos. It opens us to the global channel for investors who want to join us in our mission: Changing lives through responsible lending to women in rural areas. Since we joined Mintos with our Conmigo platform, we’ve had a great experience and were able to further expand the reach of our products and services, always maintaining our people-centric commitment and finding ways to accompany our clients and create more job opportunities.”
Cherem added:
“{At] Contigo, we have more than 2 500 team members who are committed, willing and able to expand our portfolio leveraging on Mintos and thus be able to serve more people and generate a positive impact on their families and their communities through our technology. Likewise, we will honor Mintos trust with good experience for the investors. We are going to leave a dent in this world with the support of Mintos investors.”
Mintos has “added Financiera Contigo loans to the Diversified and High Yield 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.”