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● projectScaled · national · 1990
Compartamos Banco - group lending (Crédito Mujer)
Mexico's largest microfinance institution, born in 1990 as the NGO Asociación Programa Compartamos I.A.P.
illustrative atlas image · Ksenia Chernaya / PexelsCBCompartamos Banco (Grupo Gentera)CLCarlos Labarthe CostasCDCarlos Danel CendoyaMAManuela AngelucciDKDean Karlan
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01 The context
to provide microloans to women from low-income sectors. Its flagship product is group lending with joint liability (groups of 5 to 50 people, mostly women). More than 60% of the portfolio is group credit and in 2025 it is targeting 3.2 million active clients. It was the subject of an RCT that randomly expanded branches across 110 communities.
02 How it works
03 What it stands on
Evidence level
Own experience
Grounded in published theory
Documented evidence elsewhere
Independently evaluated here
Peer-reviewed research documents this project: the strongest evidence level in the atlas.
The evidence 2 ›
EvidenceInforme anual y de sostenibilidad 2025 (Gentera)Grupo Gentera · 2025
EvidenceMicrocredit Impacts: Evidence from a Randomized Microcredit Program Placement Experiment by Compartamos BancoAmerican Economic Journal: Applied Economics 7(1):151-182 (Angelucci, Karlan, Zinman) · 2015