To celebrate Women’s World Banking’s 45th anniversary, we are showcasing the voices of individuals from around the world who have shaped and touched Women’s World Banking journey since its inception in 1979 to today!
These are stories from across Women’s World Banking’s reach from the women we serve and our customers, to allies and women in leadership who have contributed to women’s economic empowerment and financial inclusion.
For nearly four decades, Dr. Teresa Eugenia Prada González has been at the forefront of financial inclusion in Colombia, pioneering solutions that empower low-income women through access to capital, financial education, and economic opportunity. As the founder of Fundación delamujer, she has used microfinance as a powerful tool for change.
Making A Financial System that Works for the Majority
Teresa’s journey into the world of financial inclusion began from firsthand experience. After graduating from Universidad Santo Tomás, she managed a credit portfolio for a construction company, and through this experience, she witnessed how financial exclusion forced small business owners to turn to exploitative loan sharks, trapping them in a cycle of debt:
“Seeing these struggles firsthand fueled my passion to create a financial system that worked for the majority—especially for low-income women.”
Her vision led to the founding of Fundación delamujer in 1986, a nonprofit dedicated to providing much-needed financial support to women entrepreneurs and small business owners in Colombia. Today, the organization serves over 930 municipalities across 29 of Colombia’s 32 departments and is one of Women’s World Banking’s oldest Network Members.
A Mission Driven by Compassion
From the earliest days of Fundacion delamujer, Teresa always challenged herself to deeply understand her clients and the nature of their businesses. “By closely interacting with them,” she says, “I realized the enormous potential they had to drive meaningful change in the poorest communities of our country, especially in those where women were not only the emotional backbone but also the primary source of household income.”
With every story she heard and every customer she encountered, Teresa saw the opportunity to build a financial system that went beyond merely granting loans to one that could truly empower those who had been excluded from traditional banking.
Blazing a Trail for Microfinance in Columbia
Leading a microfinance institution in the 1980s came with challenges. At the time, microfinance was a new development, and microbusinesses were perceived as high-risk. This made financial institutions hesitant to support entrepreneurs lacking formal records or collateral, which forced them to rely on predatory lenders with abusive interest rates. To overcome these barriers, Teresa had to demonstrate that women were not only reliable borrowers but key drivers of economic development. These challenges only underscored the real need to make credit for low-income individuals, particularly women, easier and more accessible.
To address these gaps, Fundacion delamujer offers several innovative products tailored to their clients’ needs, including flexible microloans, microinsurance, and financial education programs to ensure sustainable and effective solutions. This includes an innovative personalized microcredit methodology that allows Fundacion delamujer to understand their clients’ businesses and needs without requiring traditional collateral.
Addressing the Evolving Needs of Women in Microfinance – And Protecting Them
Over time, the recognition of both microfinance and women’s role in supporting their families led to the development of more specialized financial products, such as savings accounts, insurance, housing loans, and entrepreneurship financing. Before, the needs of low-income women mainly involved accessing formal credit to sustain their businesses and livelihoods; now, they require a much broader range of solutions tailored to their specific, and diverse, aspirations.
However, as microfinance continues to develop, client protection becomes more of a challenge. Teresa notes that to balance growth with the protection of their most vulnerable clients, microfinance institutions and traditional banks can adopt several techniques, including:
- Rigorous financial profile assessments: Implementing data analysis systems that verify the sustainability of loans, preventing over-indebtedness.
- Responsible product designs: Adapting products to the real needs and capacities of each client, offering fair conditions for amounts, terms, and interest rates.
- Customer protection: Establishing protocols and monitoring mechanisms that allow early intervention in cases of risk, ensuring that clients don’t fall into debt cycles.
- Prioritizing Financial well-being: Promoting financial education and personalized support so that each loan contributes to strengthening clients’ economic capacity and their inclusion in the formal financial system.
This way, Teresa says, “sustainable credit portfolio growth can be fostered without compromising customer protection and well-being, achieving a balance that benefits both the institution and the communities it serves.”
More than Just Money: Making A Real Impact in Women’s Lives
If Teresa could change one thing about the financial sector, it would be shifting success metrics from loan disbursement figures to real impact in women’s lives: “Microfinance is not just about distributing money; it is about empowering women to build a better future for themselves and their families.”
Through her unwavering commitment to the real needs of low-income women and drive for innovation, Teresa continues to redefine what’s possible in microfinance.
Women’s World Banking is dedicated to economic empowerment through financial inclusion for the nearly one billion women in the world with no or limited access to formal financial services. Using our sophisticated market and consumer research, we turn insights into real action to design and advocate for policy engagement, digital financial solutions, workplace leadership programs, and gender lens investing.
In the past seven years alone, we’ve helped provide 86 million women in emerging markets access and use of financial products and services that are transforming women’s lives, households, businesses and communities, and driving inclusive growth globally.
Help us reach the nearly billion women still excluded from the formal financial system. Donate now.
