Microfinance

DISA’s microfinance programme has proved itself to be a blessing for many disadvantaged families through a record of success by promoting financial resilience and achieving other social objectives – reaching the excluded, empowering women and developing the capacity of small groups of people to be in charge of their own lives. It aims to empower women, alleviate children and adolescents' hidden hunger, and eliminate rural poverty.
DISA’s microfinance programme has a particular focus in serving women from disadvantaged communities by providing them financial support through credit delivery and encouraging them to generate savings. DISA covers 101 Upazilas in 19 districts of Bangladesh through its microfinance programme with a network of 5,965 Village Organizations (VOs) under 102 microfinance branches. There are 1,15,881 members and 86,824 borrowers as on March 2024, among them 83,079 are female borrowers.

Members’ Savings

Currently, there are three different types of savings plans offered by the DISA microfinance programme: General, Special, and Voluntary. For the past 30 years, it has successfully run both the General and the Special savings schemes. Members of the General saving plans are required to save at least 20 taka each week and have the option of depositing their Special savings too. Since these savings enable the members to cope with emergencies or unforeseen circumstances they are able to withdraw their Special savings at any given time. Additionally, DISA began its project for Voluntary savings.

Components of Microfinance Programme

DISA’s microfinance programme is built on a number of components that address the needs of the people. These components are:

• JAGORON (Rural and Urban Microcredit)
• AGROSOR (Micro Enterprise)
• BUNIAD (Ultra Poor)
• SUFOLON (Agriculture and Seasonal Loan)
• ILFF (Innovative Loan Fund Facility)
• Water Credit Adoption

The following MF data shows as of March 2024

#	Loan Product	No. of Members	No. of Borrowers	Loan O/S(M)	Savings(M)	Cumulative dis(M)
1	Jagoron	84,461	57,703	1,542.62	1151.62	21,601.00
2	Agroshor	23,422	22,122	1,521.58	507.93	15,219.43
3	Buniad	2,508	2,161	23.32	6.34	108.36
4	Sufolon	930	849	162.59	11.49	2,017.07
5	ILFF	0	0	0	0	1.43
6	LRP	0	0	0	0	7.44
7	EFFRAP	38	36	0.91	0	481.65
8	IGA	0	0	0	0	0.05
9	WCAD	4,522	3,953	82.68	40.24	591.62
	Total	1,15,881	86,824	3333.70	1,717.62	40,028.05