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The International Finance Corporation and the MasterCard Foundation have signed a cooperation agreement worth $1 million with FINCA, a global microfinance institution, to support expansion of microcredit facilities in the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to a statement released on Tuesday.

Under the agreement, the IFC said FINCA will expand access to credit and digital financial services for low-income earners and small-scale entrepreneurs in the central African country. The Washington D.C-based multilateral lender said it will provide advisory services for two years to help FINCA DRC strengthen its ability to offer access to credit and expand its mobile banking operations to increase its reach by 200,000 new clients.

“It is exciting to see how FINCA has already begun to transform the financial landscape in the Democratic Republic of Congo with a ground-breaking mobile banking solution,” said Riadh Naouar, IFC’s Head of Financial Industry Group Advisory Services in Africa. “Access to financial services for all is a cornerstone of inclusive economic growth and development.”

The IFC said the project is part of the Partnership for Financial Inclusion, which is a joint initiative of the IFC and the MasterCard Foundation aimed at expanding microfinance and advance digital financial services in Sub-Saharan Africa.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, less than 11 per cent of adults in the country have an account with a formal financial institution and only two per cent have access to formal credit. But while mainstream commercial banks mostly serve large corporate clients, FINCA DRC focuses on providing financial services to small-scale entrepreneurs that constitute the largest part of the informal economy.

FINCA DRC currently is the largest microfinance institution in the country, operating in four regions through a network of 20 branches and 900 FINCA eXpress agents. About half of its 256,000 customers are women.

“FINCA is dedicated to providing access to responsible and affordable financial services to low-income Congolese,” said Andrée Simon, CEO of FINCA Microfinance Holding Company. “This initiative will propel FINCA to better leverage the power of digital technology and put banking in the hands of our customers, no matter where they live.”