This year in October, the President of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández, and Georg Fahrenschon, the President of the Deutscher Sparkassen- und Giroverband (German Savings Banks Association) agreed upon the basic issues of future cooperation between the Sparkassenstiftung für internationale Kooperation (Savings Banks Foundation for International Cooperation) with Honduras during a meeting in Berlin. Following the Honduran government’s request for support in the field of financial literacy addressed to the German Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe (Savings Banks Finance Group), the meeting in Berlin culminated in a successful ending: A cooperation agreement between the Honduran banking supervisory authority CNBS and the Sparkassenstiftung is currently being negotiated.
A fact-finding mission executed by Sparkassenstiftung experts within the scope of the <link http: www.sparkassenstiftung.de en projects projekt regionalprojekt-zur-verbesserung-des-nachhaltigen-zugangs-zu-finanzdienstleistungen-durch-die-staerk _blank>Regional Project for Latin America in Honduras paved the ground for the cooperation agreement.
National strategy for financial inclusion: Sparkassenstiftung supports development of financial market in Honduras
Honduras has 8.6 million inhabitants. Given a moderate economic growth, this Central American country is characterized by an extremely unequal income distribution and high poverty rates. A huge problem is the high safety risk – Honduras belongs to the countries with the highest murder rates in the world.
The Honduran financial market is dominated by a huge difference between formal financial institutions and the partly informal microfinance sector in mainly rural areas. The financial sector has to cope with two big challenges: First, giving broad segments of the population access to financial services and second, improving the population’s level of basic financial literacy.
The Honduran government has realized these challenges and now takes the necessary measures to encounter them. In so doing, the Honduran banking supervisory authority CNBS has developed a national strategy for financial inclusion with the aim to give the population access to needs-oriented financial services and ensure its basic financial education. The Sparkassenstiftung will support CNBS in further enhancing and implementing this national strategy.
Contact partners:
Inka Rank / Carina Lau
Sparkassenstiftung für internationale Kooperation
Simrockstraße 4
53113 Bonn / Germany
Phone: +49 228 9703-6631 /-6608
Fax: +49 228 9703-6613