Banco Multiple ADEMI

Debt : March 2025

BIO has granted a USD 15 M loan to Banco Multiple ADEMI, a Dominican multiple bank with a strong focus on MSME financing

Amount

€ 13,700,000.00

Type of investment

Debt

Development impacts

Local economic growth
Financial inclusion
Financial additionality

Beneficiary locations

Latin America and Caribbean: Dominican Republic

Investment field

Financial Institutions

Activity

KK.64.190 Commercial banking

Organisation

Banco Multiple ADEMI

Website

https://bancoademi.com.do/

Domicile

Dominican Republic

Founded in 1997, ADEMI began as a development bank to expand ADEMI Foundation’s successful microfinance program. In 2005, it became a Savings and Credit bank, and in2013, it evolved to a multiple bank (authorised to provide all kinds of financial services).

Today, ADEMI is the leading player in the Dominican microfinance sector. ADEMI’s mission is to drive the sustainable development of its clients, creating a positive social impact in the less privileged segments of the Dominican society. The main segment targeted by ADEMI is microenterprises (57% of the loan portfolio volume). The small enterprises and medium-sized enterprises segments are mainly composed of “graduated” clients that started their relationship with ADEMI as microenterprises.

BIO's investment is aimed at growing the microfinance portfolio, helping ADEMI expand its reach to underprivileged segments and MSMEs.

Since 2022, ADEMI has been implementing a new strategy to harness digital trends, to improve its services, and increase efficiency.

Development impacts

Local economic growth
Increasing access to credits and other basic financial services by directing BIO’s funds to the microenterprise portfolio, which currently represents 57% of total GLP and 58% of clients.

Supporting the mobilisation of local savings by offering a range of deposits products (checking, savings and term-deposits accounts), diversifying ADEMI's sources of funding and strengthening the financial security of its MSME clients.

Increasing the bank's outreach for the provision of additional business development services (including technical assistance for improving housing and business infrastructure) and financial education programs targeting micro-enterprises (22k people have benefitted from the training since 2013)
Financial inclusion
Explicitly targeting “underprivileged” segments, including subsistence productive microentrepreneurs (average loan amount of USD 1.1k) and rural clients through tailor-made products and an extensive network of 74 branches (almost half of which in rural areas).

Facilitating first-time access to the financial system, representing around 14% of the total number of clients. 20k of these first-time customers received a loan with an average amount smaller than USD 800.

Promoting innovative loans such as specific products for education, housing, and a “second chance” loan to help clients with a former bad credit record to be reinserted in the financial system.
Financial additionality
Providing ADEMI with long-term financing in local currency, which is not easily accessible in the country.
BIO’s intervention will help ADEMI further diversify its funding base.

E&S Impact

The following key areas of E&S improvement were agreed upon: ADEMI will

Include the EDFI exclusion list in ADEMI’s internal policies
Finalise the grievance mechanism for employees
Develop an Occupational Health & Safety Manual
Develop an E&S management system, on a voluntary basis
Obtain Client Protection Certification, on a voluntary basis (gold certification obtained at the time of signing)

Situation at the time of investment

ADEMI has an Environmental and Social Sustainability Protocol stating their commitment to sustainable development. The Strategic Plan defines concrete E&S objectives for 2025-2027. The institution plans to develop and implement an ESMS in the near future.

ADEMI is officially committed to the Client protection pathway. The Code of Ethics and Conduct states their commitment to the different client protection principles. In February 2024, the institution performed a CPP self-assessment supported by an external consultant. The institution is working on the identified opportunities for improvement with the aim of obtaining the CPP Certification. Additionally, ADEMI performs annually a social rating. The rating report of April 2024 resulted in a score of 3.5/5, with a positive outlook.

Responsibility for Client protection and Sustainability has been assigned. A Sustainability committee was created earlier this year, whose task is to mitigate the internal environmental impact of the bank.

ADEMI employs 1758 staff members. Working conditions are generally adequate.

Risk Category: Low-risk C