Three Chilean banks - BancoEstado, Banco del Desarrollo and Santander Santiago dominate the local micro credit industry with some 95% of total loans issued. The top three micro credit providers serve their micro enterprise clients through specialised micro finance units. State-owned bank BancoEstado leads the Chilean market with some 140,000 micro enterprise clients. The micro enterprise segment represents both a profitable and low-risk business for BancoEstado because less than 1% of the clients are behind with their loan instalments, the bank's chairman Javier Etcheberry said recently. The micro credit segment in Chile shows a good deal of growth potential as only around 150,000 of the country's 1.1 million micro enterprises finance their business through the banking sector. Source: BN Americas
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