Community Reef and Forest Bank
GreenFi Systems Limited (East Africa)
Village Savings and Loans are local community owned “banks” that are shown to produce increased access to finance, enhance local investment, and can be tied to effective natural resource management. Communities which depend on nature and the organizations which support these communities often lack effective and appropriately designed and affordable tools to support local ecosystem management. GreenFi has developed a smartphone and tables application (with supporting off-line system) that facilitates the establishment and management of Village Savings and Loans tied to sound environmental management – creating community reef and forest banks. GreenFi is a team of experienced community-based natural resource practitioners, who provides highly effective and cost-efficient tools to NGOs and companies to help establish and manage community reef and forest banks. With these tools, communities supported by NGOs or companies, set up community-owned banks, from which loans to community members are issued. Loan terms include requirements for nature management, for example planting of mangroves or protection of reefs. When community members repay loans and protect the environment, they receive an eco-credit score, which qualifies borrowers for higher levels of credit and lower rates of interest. The GreenFi approach is founded on the recognition that credit systems can be blind to natural resource overuse, and only by incorporating environmental requirements into credit terms, can we create systemic incentives for environmental restoration, rather than degradation.
GreenFi Systems Limited is an East African operating financial technology (fintech) start-up company. They are building mobile money-integrated management information systems which power the scaling of the community eco-credit movement.
Link: http://greenfi.org/