MANILA, Philippines - CARD Bank Inc. recently took part as one of the panelists in the global conference initiated by Women’s World Banking (WWB) and hosted by Microfund for Women/Jordan (MfW) under the patronage of Her Majesty Queen Rania in Amman, Jordan.
CARD Bank president and chief executive officer Dolores M. Torres spoke before 250 microfinance practitioners, commercial bankers, investors, donors and regulators from over 40 countries attendees, and voiced the Philippines’ exceptional challenges, approaches, and perspective on financial inclusion. Flordeliza L. Sarmiento, president and CEO of Rizal Rural Bank Inc., which is the newest addition to the CARD MRI, also participated in the conference.
The global conference aims to promote financial inclusion for low-income women with sessions focused on how financial institutions can expand their market by developing suite of products to meet the specific needs of women clients; and innovative approaches to reach three segments of the underserved population: youth, salaried workers and rural women.
During the event, WWB conferred to Jordan’s Microfund for Women the 2013 Excellence in Leadership Award. CARD Bank was one of the finalists for the award.
The award annually recognizes a microfinance institution (MFI) committed to developing women’s leadership and gender diversity in order to prove that investing in women makes business sense.
CARD is the first rural bank in the Philippines recognized by Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) to have evolved from microfinance NGO, with the purpose of turning poor women, who were once considered non-bankable, financially inclusive.
Last October, CARD reached almost 2.2-million socially-and-economically challenged women across the country. In July, BSP awarded CARD as Hall of Famer for Financial Inclusion Champion after winning such since 2011.