Jaime has received his placement goals for the current month. In the aforementioned document, it is indicated that you must disburse at least 25 microcredits (10 new and 15 recurring), your monthly variation in placements must be no less than $.20,000 and your default must not exceed 2.00%.
The problem is that Jaime has been assigned to a remote area, where the Office does not have the logistical facilities that it would have to find in an urban area. So we have no mobility (motorcycles), internet service, scanner, photocopiers, among others; which has to establish itself by its own means.
On the other hand, his colleague, Pedro; It has also received a similar goal, with the exception that its scope of action is in an agricultural area, which depends exclusively on the harvest of a certain crop, whose campaign begins with the rainy season. Therefore, the economic activity in the area registers a strong seasonality, which is not taken into account when determining the goal.
Finally, Julio, who also works at the MFI, has received the same goal, without considering that his portfolio amount is higher than the average of those of the others, which forces him to have to place a much higher amount in order to achieve the minimum of $.20,000.
Situations such as those described are common to find in some MFIs that do not adequately structure the goals of their Credit Analysts. Among the main causes we find:
• Do not consider the region (jungle, mountains and coast) where the Analysts operate, nor the support logistics (internet, mobility, etc.).
• Do not differentiate the productivity of Analysts in remote areas from those of Analysts in urban areas.
• Not considering the population density and the number of businesses in the areas of influence.
• Do not take into account that the productivity of the Analysts is affected by the seasonality of the crops in the area (rice, corn, coffee, etc.).
• Not considering the average balances of the Credit Analysts' portfolios, which could easily be corrected by balancing the portfolios appropriately.
• Do not consider the environment or competition in the market.
Other more worrisome errors are:
• Focus the goal on the growth of loans and not on the number of operations, which allows Analysts to place large amounts, affecting the average amount of loans and the profitability margins (the higher the amount, the lower the rate) of the MFI..
• Not differentiating the goal by segment, which allows Analysts to place loans to micro, small and medium-sized companies, which can be corrected with the segmentation and specialization of Credit Analysts.
• Not indicating the minimum number of new clients, within the goal of the number of credits, which induces the Analysts not to increase the base of their clients and to over-indebt their current clients.
• Give a low weight to the default goal, within the bonus for meeting goals, which induces Analysts not to manage a healthy portfolio.
• Allow the fulfillment of the goal in the last days of the month, when it could be done gradually, if it was worked in an orderly manner. One way to correct this is to weight your biweekly goal bonus.
Given the above, it only remains to say that part of the success of MFIs will be in the adequate assignment of goals to their
Credit Analysts and the growth of a healthy portfolio, considering the context of over-indebtedness that is beginning to appear in the microfinance segment.
