Vicenta Tineo Lizana

Thank you for your loan. It has been disbursed to Vicenta Tineo Lizana by FINCA Peru in Peru. We are excited to watch this business grow. Over the next 4 months, FINCA Peru will be collecting repayments from this entrepreneur and posting progress updates on the Kiva website.

Vicenta used her Kiva loan of 3000 soles to buy 150 sacks of cement for her hardware/construction materials store. Sale have improved dramatically, Vicenta tells me, since she recently expanded her store to offer a wider variety of merchandise. She would have liked to buy sand and other hardware items, too, but she will have to wait until her next loan cycle for that.

Vicenta has been a FINCA client since 2002, though she left the institution for some time because she was travelling too much to attend her group’s weekly meetings. “The obligatory savings is what’s most beneficial for us,” she tells me.* “FINCA also helps us when we need to pay debts or buy materials.” Vicenta has a real entrepreneurial spirit, which comes through when she speaks about her business and her future. I ask her what her goals for the future are, and she chuckles and tells me she has more goals than she can count. Her previous goals were to expand her business and build her own home, both of which she has done successfully (her home is still under construction). “I built that house with my money,” she tells me. “My husband saves money, too, but for other things.” She says she like being independent and earning money. “When a man gives you money, he comes and asks, ‘Now how much have you spent? On what?’ I get bored [of that].”

Now, she says, she’d like to start a business selling heavy machinery, though she knows this goal is still a long way off.

* Each FINCA client is required to deposit a certain amount in her savings account each week; this amount varies according to her loan amount. Clients are free to deposit more than the required amount, and earn interest on their savings, since the money is used to give internal loans to individual group members.