by Petronilo V. Casuga Jr.

On April 27, 2010, on the occasion of the Farmers’ Unity Meeting organized by the Bangon Pilipinas Party (BPP) in Muñoz, Nueva Ecija, I got the chance to listen to Nanay Tessie about her family’s situation as rice farmer in Muñoz.

“We had difficulties with our finances”, she said. “The loans we got from the traders were spent mostly on the children’s school expenses and farm inputs i.e. fertilizers and pesticides. Even before the harvest, our crops were already committed to the traders to pay off our loans and they (traders) dictate the price of our produce in most cases. There was very little left to us.”  This was how Nanay Tessie, member of a multi-purpose cooperative (MPC) in Munoz Nueva Ecija, summed up her family’s situation. continue reading…

Recent advances in internet-based financial services have so far made it possible for SMEs and other unbanked sectors of society to make payments via text messaging. But their credit access to banks remains elusive.

To find ways of enhancing SME access to the full benefits of internet banking, CSRSME Asia will team-up with BDO, the country’s largest bank, and the Shared Vision Cooperative of SMEs to create the Bayanihan Cash Card (BaCC), a debit card that will connect SMEs and their clients with BDO’s ATM, mobile phone, point of sale facilities and automatic financial statement generation.

The approach is innovative firstly because it targets socially responsible SMEs or social enterprises with the triple bottom line of economic sustainability, social development, and ecological conservation.

Secondly, it allows social enterprises to strengthen their supply chains with the development of a financial intermediation system that will mobilize savings and provide financing for production and marketing of local products.

Finally, the project hints at a framework for participatory local development that increases the benefits of all stakeholders including small producers, consumers, wholesalers, trading/auction centers, retail distribution centers, vendors, banks, social enterprises, NGOs, and local government units.

Welcome to the Shared Vision Cooperative (SVC) page!

Hilda Panganiban

SVC  General Manager

Shared Vision Cooperative