¡Bienvenidos a Cartagena!

I am officially in love with the city of Cartagena, including the people, the food, the colors, the weather, the palm trees, the modern buildings, the historical ruins, the proximity to Bogota, the colonial Centro, the beaches, and the laid back lifestyle. Before I dive into my experiences in this exotic city, let me back up and explain why I had three very productive days in the office last week.

On Monday, I met with Lina, the head of risk at Opportunity International (OI), and we reviewed the spreadsheet I created, documenting the various controls for the credit product for Grupos de Confianza (I will explain in greater deal what these groups actually are). Lina was very excited about what I created and I felt very satisfied knowing that I made something that could be referenced by internal auditors, external auditors, the internal operation team, and regulatory bodies such as the

The cutest little girl I met, also named Sara!

Superintendencia Financiera de Colombia. In summary, the spreadsheet outlined information organized under the following column headers: control, the person responsible for the action, description of control, result of the control, corresponding process (ID and name), corresponding form, and supporting documentation. Under this format, I was able to identify 16 controls for this particular product and populated the spreadsheet after consulting various Asesor Comerciales (employees of Opportunity International that obtain and monitor the clients of the micro-loans; for my Wells Fargo readers, these would be Relationship Managers), operations managers, and office supervisors. I will be creating a similar spreadsheet for the other products they offer including loans to individuals, savings accounts, and deposit accounts. In order to see these controls first-hand, as well as the above mentioned employees, processes, and formats, I inquired if I would be able to visit a field office. The Cartagena office was the first one that came to mind. Lina and the Global Fellows committee at Wells Fargo were supportive and I purchased my tickets on Monday. The thought process was that by visiting the Cartagena field office, I would be able to verify with my own eyes exactly how each integral part of my control spreadsheet was used and, therefore, strengthened my understanding of the controls.

Flight to Cartagena.

I left Bogota on Thursday morning. My trip here was a bit of an adventure, much like the rest of my travels outside of Bogota, as I found out that I did not have a ticket in my name when I arrived at the airport; something went wrong on the internal site where I buy tickets and my confirmation number on my itinerary was no longer valid. However, my years of travel experience prepared me for unexpected issues with tickets, in another country, on the day of travel, while speaking a different language. In other words...I went straight up to the first class counter. My trusted Avianca staff ticketed me a seat in coach for less than what I was quoted in my invalid itinerary, and I left just 40 minutes after my initial departure time. It also didn't hurt that there are flights hourly from Bogota to Cartagena, much like my many trips to and from SFO/LAX. Needless to say, it made for a fun story and I love adventures!

Prancing around my new room!

The flight to Cartagena took about 90 minutes and I arrived at my hotel, Edificio Orange, around noon. I stayed with Travelers, the same company that owns and manages my apartment in Bogota. I am thoroughly impressed with their ability to make guests feel at home. In fact, many of the units are apartments/homes, not hotel rooms. When I arrived at the hotel, I quickly dropped my bags, opened the blinds, danced in circles, and pranced around a bit. I later took some pictures of the beautiful unit, walked down a water-front street in search of food, and soaked in the warm, tropical heat. I noticed during this walk that the area in which I am staying, Castilla Grande, looks a lot like the nicest areas of Miami. The buildings are very modern and the skyline is covered with these tall, white skyscrapers. There is blue water framing every view, most of the rooms and balconies are constructed with glass, and the plants are very tropical, green, and well-maintained. It reminded me of Vice City Miami. After my stroll, I returned to my unit in order to change for the office and left shortly thereafter. I observed the significant change in demographics as my taxi exited the touristy zones full of sharp, modern, white skyscrapers and entered Centro full of antique colonial buildings, historical ruins, streets filled with Bohemian tourists and residents alike.

Cruising around Cartagena after my arrival

After a twenty minute drive, I watched the streets transform very drastically as I arrived in Santa Lucia, the barrio which contains the Cartagena Opportunity International (OI) office. This neighborhood did not have a trace of toursim. I stuck out like Goldilocks in a forest full of brown bears. Despite feeling the almost tanglible stares, I did not feel scared, threatened, or unsafe. I was just very aware of how different I looked and felt out of place. Before coming to Cartagena, I was unaware that the city and its surrounding barrios are home to more than a million Colombians. This was more apparent when I arrived in Santa Lucia, as it was filled to the brim with people bustling down the street selling various goods. This side of the city seemed light years away from Castilla Grande and Bocagrande's tourist filled hotels, palm tree-framed roads, and white buildings. 

I entered the OI office and was greeted by a security guard with a pistol and six rounds on his hip. Due to the fact that a significant number of clients come to the OI to make their weekly or monthly payments, the doors are locked at all times and the guard takes his job very seriously. I waited for a short amount of time before being greeted by Jefferson, the head of the Cartagena office, who greeted me with a warm welcome, as he led me up the stairs to his office. We talked briefly about my experiences in Bogota, my goals for my trip to Cartagena, and the potential meetings that were planned that afternoon and the following day. Jefferson was from Bogota but left four months ago to run the Cartagena office when it officially became a finance company. Prior to August, the office existed but all credit disbursements and payments were routed through a bank which made managing clients significantly more difficult as the bank was the first point of contact regarding payments. I inquired about Jefferson's move to Cartagena and he said that he preferred the laid-back atmosphere, the kind people, and the warm weather. Jefferson also shared some statistics with me: the average salary in Colombia is about 566,700 pesos monthly, which comes out to about 19,000 pesos daily. In terms of US dollars, the equivalent would be about $340/month or $11/day. Keep in mind this is the average for the entire country...I can imagine the average salary in the outskirts of Cartagena is far, far lower.

The Cartagena OI Office. 

Jefferson also explained Grupos de Confianza, or Trust Groups, in further detail. Within Colombia, many individuals are unable to obtain loans, or any capital for that matter, necessary to grow their businesses. As such, OI offers micro loans to groups of people, where the members of these groups are from the same barrios and they guarantee one another. This model works very well, as the members of these very poor communities have known each other for many years, do not compete among each other, and often share homes (4-5 families live in one building). The company currently has over 2,000 clients and 70% of them are within Grupos de Confianza. The groups are formed with a minimum of 15 and a maximum of 45 members. The initial credit amount is on average 200,000 pesos, or $120 USD, which is divided amount members in varying amounts depending on their businesses. The members of the group make weekly payments for a 16-week cycle. After the cycle, the amount of credit is revisited and, depending on the consistency of payments, the full principal amount is increased in 40% increments following each cycle. Jefferson proudly stated that the most successful Grupo de Confianza is held within the Cargatena office! This group of 27 members began with the standard 200,000 pesos and due to their consistent payments, they have made it through 11 cycles. As mentioned, each cycle is 16 weeks, or four months, therefore, the group has been in formation for over three years. With each successful cycle, the principal amount of the credit increased, and the group is now up to 18,000,000 pesos.

As supported by this example, the model works very well. The members are given education and training, and have incentive to do well as they are contributing to the greater good of not only their group, but the community itself. OI offers an interest rate of 3.5% or less. This is higher than the average in poor neighborhoods in Colombia (2.29%) but significantly lower than the rate offered by dangerous loan sharks that are notorious in Colombia. These loan sharks make loans and charge up to 30% interest and require daily payments. They visit these very poor neighborhoods and strictly enforce payments in person. If clients do not pay, there are very horrible punishments, including death. With respect to OI's costs associated with weekly monitoring, many of the administrative expenses associated with microfinancing are contained due to the fact that the groups are self-regulating. After verifying their identities through a simple credit check, the Asesor Comercial conducts four training sessions and also forms subgroups within the larger group. These subgroups each have a coordinator that collects the payments of each of its members on a weekly basis. Furthermore, the members elect the following positions that govern the entire group:

• Treasurer: collects and reconciles the payments from each subgroup coordinator
• Secretary: responsible for making sure that the members don't miss more than 5 meetings within the 16 week cycle
• Auditor: (will get back to you on this one)
• President: the sole name on the group's account with OI, responsible for depositing the money for the entire group. This person is usually the most trusted and respected within the community. 

My meeting with Jefferson was extremely informative and prepared me for my first client meeting. On our way out of the office, Jefferson introduced me to Sandra, an Asesor Comercial, who informed me that we would be visiting new potential clients that wanted to form a Grupo de Confianza. These potential clients had heard about Opportunity International from other members of the community. The events that transpired shook me to the core and will forever change me as a person. To summarize, I am including an entry I wrote in my journal on the cab ride back to my hotel Thursday night:



A day in the OI field offices!

Today will forever impact my life, including my future career moves. I visited a very poor pueblo outside of Cartagena, where myself and two Opportunity International managers presented on the various benefits of microfinancing. We tapped a large piece of paper to the side of the home that was shared by up to four families, and this served as our whiteboard. I have never seen a more attentive and grateful audience. Afterwards, I played with chickens, got my nails painted by one of the young girls, and was given gifts of chocolate. I learned as much from these future clients as they did from me. I am overwhelmed with joy.


I will update this blog soon with further details of my visits with clients, including my full day visits on Friday. With that, I am off to go explore Cartagena on this lovely Saturday evening. Un abrazo. Chao.