Banco Compartamos

How do you build an innovation capability that can genuinely protect and extend a market leadership position?

Banco Compartamos Financial Inclusion Innovation Lab (FIINLAB)

PROJECT TYPE

Innovation Architecture / Innovation Portfolio Performance / Innovation Program Build and Launch / Innovation Project Support

CONTEXT

Banco Compartamos, the largest microfinance bank in Latin America, saw disruption coming. Group microlending, the model that had built the business, was under threat from new competitors and changing customer behavior. Leadership needed more than a response. They needed a new engine for growth, built from the ground up.

We worked with Fiinlab, Banco Compartamos’ newly created innovation lab, for four years, starting when the team was three people and there was no system, no process, and no portfolio. We designed the full innovation architecture, from customer insight development to idea generation, venture building methodology, and portfolio governance. As the lab grew, we shifted from building the system to strengthening it, mentoring a pipeline of ventures through successive stages.

By the end of the engagement, Fiinlab had grown to over 30 people and was simultaneously running more than a dozen venture building initiatives. Two had reached live pilot stage: a revolving credit line for catalogue product sellers and a mobile virtual network operator platform designed to deepen customer loyalty.

Banco Compartamos