DFC celebrates 50th anniversary

The Development Finance Corporation is celebrating its fiftieth anniversary. Established in 1963, the DFC is a lending organization that provides loans for agriculture, housing, education and tourism. And today, at its branches across the country, several activities were held…and in Belize City in particular, free health checkups and credit consultations were provided to its customers. News Five spoke with Belize City Branch Manager, Rolando Thompson, who says that DFC distinguishes itself from other lending institutions by providing supervisory credit lending support. 

Rolando Thompson, Belize City Branch Manager, DFC

Rolando Thompson

“We are tying in the Customer Appreciation Day with our fiftieth anniversary. We have been around since 1993; we’ve come across some hurdles. We’ve gotten over those and now we want to celebrate moving forward and as part of that, we want to give back something to our customers. As you can see, we invited some other agencies that really there is a lot of health consciousness right now so we wanted to invite them to be a part of it.  We have been developing the country of Belize; trying to assist. We’ve been in agriculture, housing, education, tourism; all across the sectors. And I think we have made our mark in helping the economy to grow.  We have over four thousand customers and that has been growing over the years so we think that DFC is here to stay now and we are looking forward to the future.”

Reporter

“What are some of the things you guys have available…what are some of the loans that you have available here?”

Rolando Thompson

“We do from very small businesses, micro. I would say from two thousand dollars going all the way up to forty thousand; you can get at eight percent (interests). We have started this program like two years ago and we found that it has been growing; a lot of demand for small businesses. Other than that, we do manufacturing loans. Right now we have a special rate of eight and a half…we could give up to half a million dollars at eight and a half percent—of course there are conditions that need to be met.  One of the major things that distinguishes us from the other banks is that we do what we call supervisory credit lending. If you have a project, we tend to monitor it; help you design it, help you implement it. And even after you implement it, we tend to continue working with you up to the end of that project right. And along the way, there is technical advice being offered to the borrowing. So I think that’s one of our greatest strengths.”

The theme for the anniversary is “Celebrating fifty years of investment in the Belizean Economy.”