Established in 1997 and licensed in 2000, Al Amana Microfinance operates as an association as mandated by the Moroccan regulation. Al Amana provides individual loans, solidarity loans, and housing loans to individuals and small businesses exclusively in Morocco who struggle to access traditional financing. Additionally, it offers non-financial services to help small businesses’ development. Al Amana expanded its services to include money transfers and microinsurance through partnerships with local banks and insurance companies

 The Project’s cost is expected to be of MAD100 million with a maximum IFC’s risk amount of MAD30 million.

Blended Finance:

SLGP EC/PSW benefits from a pooled first loss guarantee provided by the European Union, represented by the European Commission (EC), via European Fund for Sustainable Development (the EFSD) and the IDA IFC-MIGA Private Sector Window’s Blended Finance Facility (“IDA PSW-BFF”). While SLGP EC/PSW benefits from both EFSD and IDA PSW BFF, sub-projects in non-IDA PSW eligible countries (i.e., EC-only countries such as Morocco) will be supported only by a pooled first-loss guarantee provided by EFSD, including this Project.   The EFSD was launched by EC in 2016 and designed to leverage additional financing by allowing risk-sharing with private investors, international financial institutions, and development banks.  IDA PSW-BFF was created by the Word Bank Group to catalyse private sector investment in IDA countries, with a focus on fragile and conflict-affected states. The concessional support from IDA PSW-BFF and EFSD would enable IFC to incorporate product enhancements to offer more efficient, competitive and scalable risk sharing facilities (RSFs) to local financial institutions to support lending to MSMEs, and at rates that are affordable. The concessional support would, therefore, also enable Al Amana to expand lending to the MSMEs where lack of financing is limiting the capacity of those clients to grow their businesses.

The level of concessionality (i.e., “subsidy) is estimated to be up to 9.7% of the total portfolio of €486 million of the entire program. The estimate is based on the difference between (i) a “reference price” (either a market price if available; the price calculated using IFC’s pricing model, which comprises three main elements: risk, cost, and profit, or a negotiated price) and (ii) the “concessional price” being charged by the blended concessional finance co-investment under the program. As is the case with all IFC’s blended concessional finance co-investments, this project has been assessed against the Enhanced Blended Concessional Finance Principles for Development Finance Institution (“DFI”) Private Sector Operations adopted by IFC and more than 20 other DFIs in 2017.  Further information on these Enhanced Principles, IFC's blended finance approach and governance, and historical information on estimated subsidy levels in IFC's blended finance portfolio can be found at: www.ifc.org/blendedfinance. SLGP EC/PSW is a platform approach that can be accessed by other financial institutions in the eligible countries.

 Al Amana is headquartered in Rabat, Morocco and has over 600 branches in urban and rural areas of Morocco. Investments can be made throughout the country.