Special Notice on Fundación D-MIRO Mision Alianza from Kiva Staff on January 24, 2011: Fundación D-MIRO Misión Alianza has recently undergone a legal status transformation process. On July 18th 2011, Fundación D-MIRO officially became Banco D-MIRO S.A. As a regulated bank, D-MIRO is able to take deposits, strengthen its equity base, and assure a stronger legal framework in which to conduct micro lending activities.

Kiva decided to renew its trust in D-MIRO and maintain the existing partnership as D-MIRO continues to target low income and marginalized populations. Furthermore, the majority shareholder will remain the NGO Misión Alianza de Noruega (The Norwegian Mission Alliance), D-MIRO’s parent organization and founder.

Partner Description
In 1997 and with fewer than 15 borrowers, Misión Alianza de Noruega established its first microcredit program on Isla Trinitaria – a peri-urban area of the port city of Guayaquil (Ecuador). In 2006 Misión Alianza created Fundación D-MIRO as a separate entity, focused solely on microcredit services. In 2009, D-MIRO was a finalist for an Award for Excellence for Most Microfinance Outreach from the Inter-American Development Bank. Before its transformation into a bank, Fundación D-MIRO used to be the largest not-for-profit microfinance institution in Ecuador. 

As of December 2011, Banco D-MIRO has a staff of over 200 committed employees and a network of fourteen agencies in Guayaquil and along the Ecuadorian coast, providing over 35,000 local borrowers with financial services. The bank continues to be headquartered on Isla Trinitaria. Banco D-MIRO’s target markets are marginalized families and micro-entrepreneurs who have been excluded from the traditional financial system for reasons that include culture, sex, race, poverty, disability, and illness. 

Banco D-MIRO´s financial services include a variety of special microcredit products, including loans for housing, education, medical treatment, and subsidized loans for disabled and/or HIV positive borrowers, students, and young entrepreneurs. Additionally, D-MIRO provides all its clients and their dependants with free health and life insurance. The bank hopes to introduce savings and deposit accounts by 2012, thus staying true to its motto of “Changing Lives” (“Cambiando Vidas”).

Vision: D-MIRO’s institutional vision is to be the microfinance institution that most contributes to overcoming poverty. 

Mission: Based on Christian values, D-MIRO provides financial services with the objective of boosting development in the vulnerable sectors of the Ecuadoran coast.

Click here to join D-MIRO’s lending team.