Early Warning System

Regions

South Asia

Geographic location where the impacts of the investment may be experienced.

Countries

Sri Lanka

Geographic location where the impacts of the investment may be experienced.

Financial Institutions

US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC)

International, regional and national development finance institutions. Many of these banks have a public interest mission, such as poverty reduction.

Project Status

Active

Stage of the project cycle. Stages vary by development bank and can include: pending, approval, implementation, and closed or completed.

Bank Risk Rating

Environmental and social categorization assessed by the development bank as a measure of the planned project’s environmental and social impacts. A higher risk rating may require more due diligence to limit or avoid harm to people and the environment. For example, "A" or "B" are risk categories where "A" represents the highest amount of risk. Results will include projects that specifically recorded a rating, all other projects are marked ‘U’ for "Undisclosed."

Borrower

LOLC Micro Credit Limited (“LOMC”)

A public entity (government or state-owned) provided with funds or financial support to manage and/or implement a project.

Sectors

Finance

The service or industry focus of the investment. A project can have several sectors.

Investment Type(s)

Loan

The categories of the bank investment: loan, grant, guarantee, technical assistance, advisory services, equity and fund.

Investment Amount (USD)

$ 14.62 million

Value listed on project documents at time of disclosure. If necessary, this amount is converted to USD ($) on the date of disclosure. Please review updated project documents for more information.

Loan Amount (USD)

$ 14.62 million

Value listed on project documents at time of disclosure. If necessary, this amount is converted to USD ($) on the date of disclosure. Please review updated project documents for more information.

Project Cost (USD)

$ 15.45 million

Value listed on project documents at time of disclosure. If necessary, this amount is converted to USD ($) on the date of disclosure. Please review updated project documents for more information.

Bank Documents

Project Disclosure [Original Source]

Primary Source

Original disclosure @ DFC website

Updated in EWS Dec 23, 2022

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Project Description

If provided by the financial institution, the Early Warning System Team writes a short summary describing the purported development objective of the project and project components. Review the complete project documentation for a detailed description.

The proposed project by DFC will support the expansion of LOMC’s micro loan and lease portfolio in Sri Lanka. It is expected to have a highly developmental impact in Sri Lanka with increased lending to individuals that are underserved with a particular focus on poor, rural women.

The Project will reach into rural areas and villages with a high concentration of unbanked households through its strategic partnership with Sri Lanka Post, the national post office system. This permeation will also allow borrowers access to technical assistance to their loans.

Investment Description

Here you can find a list of individual development financial institutions that finance the project.

US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC)

Private Actor Relationship

A Private Actor is a non-governmental body or entity that is the borrower or client of a development project, which can include corporations, private equity and banks. This describes the private actors and their roles in relation to the project, when private actor information is disclosed or has been further researched.

U.S. Sponsor: Financial Services Volunteer Corps

Foreign Sponsor: Lanka Orix Leasing Company Limited

Private Actors Description

LOLC is one of the largest microcredit providers in Sri Lanka, with over 250,000 borrowers, 70% of which are women. The Project Company is one of a few MFIs to be certified under the Smart Campaign, a voluntary set of principles to protect clients from over-indebtedness, predatory lending, and unfair treatment.

Contact Information

This section aims to support the local communities and local CSO to get to know which stakeholders are involved in a project with their roles and responsibilities. If available, there may be a complaint office for the respective bank which operates independently to receive and determine violations in policy and practice. Independent Accountability Mechanisms receive and respond to complaints. Most Independent Accountability Mechanisms offer two functions for addressing complaints: dispute resolution and compliance review.

ACCESS TO INFORMATION

Unlike many other development finance institutions, DFC does not currently have an access to information policy.

Under the United States Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), DFC is obliged to respond to reasonably formulated requests for Agency records. However, DFC may apply exemptions from release to certain types of information and may charge fees in responding to requests. DFC has a designated FOIA officer who is trained in how to respond to requests and implement the law. You can learn more about filing a FOIA request at: https://www.dfc.gov/foia

ACCOUNTABILITY MECHANISM OF THE UNITED STATES INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT FINANCE CORPORATION (DFC)

The Office of Accountability is an independent office that addresses complaints about environmental or social issues related to DFC-supported projects. The office provides communities an opportunity to have concerns independently reviewed and addressed. If you submit a complaint to the Office of Accountability, it may assist you by either seeking to address your problems by facilitating a problem solving dialogue between you and those implementing the project and/or investigating whether the DFC complied with its policies to prevent environmental, social, human rights, and labor harms.

You can find more information about the Office of Accountability at: https://www.dfc.gov/who-we-are/office-accountability