Tienda Amiga

According the several studies, Bolivia is one of the most “informal” or “grey” market economies in the world. Independent workers and mom & pop shops, which compose this informal economy, have limited access to financing and are mostly excluded from the digital economy. Tienda Amiga’s purpose is to generate impact through financial and digital inclusion of these underserved and underbanked segments of the population. Using alternative non-traditional data, we are able to provide credit to more than 40k retail clients per year and generate more than US$ 20 mm instalment-based purchases of big-ticket home goods, like washing machines, refrigerators, cellphones and computers.

Seeing how the pandemic has painfully hit mom & pop shops, we want to further our mission by leveraging our expertise in alternative non-traditional data analysis to help these small shops with a supplier marketplace and working capital financing. 

According to a 2018 study by the IMF, Bolivia is among the top 3 counties in the world with the largest share of informality in their economies, reaching more than 60% of its GDP. Consequently, most consumers in Bolivia don’t have proof of income, limiting their access to traditional financing options to buy essential home goods, like refrigerators, washing machines, computers and cellphones.

This same problem also limits growth opportunities for the informal small mom & pop shops that represent most of the counties retail sales. Their small sizes result in inefficient supply chains with no economies of scale and many layers of distributor, translating into expensive products for the shops and their consumers.

A similar problem is also present in many other counties in the Latin America, like Paraguay, Peru and Ecuador.

Using alternative non-traditional data, Tienda Amiga is able to provide credit to more than 40k retail clients per year and generate more than US$ 20 mm instalment-based purchases of big-ticket home goods, like washing machines, refrigerators, cellphones and computers.

Tienda Amiga now wants to expand its services to help mom&pop shops with a digital marketplace with a wide variety of suppliers, which will (i) gain purchasing economies of scale though aggregating the demand of many shops, (ii) negotiating directly with FMCP brands (eliminating the middleman/distributors), and (iii) having a lower cost of service though a mobile-first digital platform. These benefits will translate into better product prices for shops and their consumers. Additionally, leveraging Tienda Amiga’s expertise in using alternative data to provide financing to underserved and underbanked population, we will also provide working capital financing to the shops.

Furthermore, we will allow our +50k existing consumer clients at Tienda Amiga to be able to shop and use their available credit line at the mom&pop stores, providing them additional clients and revenues.

More 70% of the population in Bolivia lives in the “informal” or “shadow” economy, with no proof of income and limited access to credit. Tienda Amiga has focused on providing financial access to underserved and underbanked segments of the consumer population for the last 10 years, through the use of alternative non-traditional data to evaluate our client’s ability and willingness to pay. We want to further expand our business to the underserved and underfinanced mom&pop shops, that make most of the countries retail sales. By making more efficient supply chains going directly to local factories, brands, producers, and farmers, we expect to offer more competitive prices than existing multi-level-distribution channels, with the added benefits of embedded finance in the platform.

Better prices and financing is only the beginning. More digital products could be added to the platform as more data is available from our clients and it scales, like insurance, savings, P2P transfers, and other digital services.

Tienda Amiga’s purpose is to impact millions of people through financial inclusion and access to the digital economy. We have been living our purpose since our founding 10 years ago. In this journey, we built a success and profitable business with annual sales of more than US $20 million.  

Now, as banks and traditional financial institutions have further retrenched and restricted credit, especially for the smaller and most vulnerable segments of the population, we are convinced that our services are needed more than ever. That is why we want to expand beyond our consumer retail business of consumer goods and also service small mom&pops shops, who don’t have access to credit or efficient supply chains. 

Tienda Amiga was founded in 2010 and has been able to create a success and profitable business with annual sales of more than US $20 million.  We currently are serving more than 50k active clients in only one city in Bolivia, Santa Cruz. At the height of the pandemic, we were able to issue our first public bond in the local capital markets in late 2020 and plan to use the capital to expand into La Paz and Cochabamba, the two other major cities in the country. Furthermore, we are looking to develop our new mom&pop marketplace platform as a new business unit to further strengthen our ecosystem and mission. 

Our BNPL installment-based plans solve a real and urgent need for our clients. Before Tienda Amiga, there was no other service like this and many families, especially low-income families, could simple not afford to buy a washing machines, a refrigerator or a computer. Our credit scoring model, which measure many alternative non-traditional variables, provide us with an alternative to measure the creditworthiness of thin-filed or no-file clients.  

We intend to further strengthen our business model with our marketplace strategy, which will incorporate new suppliers into our existing retail platform without the risk and investments in inventory.

Finally, we want to complete our ecosystem with the mom&pop shops marketplace, which will leverage our ecommerce, logistics and financing expertise to help this also underserved segment of the economy. Both marketplaces feed on themselves, as our consumer clients will be allowed to use their credit line in the mom&pop shops, and at the same time these become new retail and contact points for our clients where they can shop and pay their installments. Be believe these feedback loops strongly reinforce the networks effects on our ecosystems and will catalyze the flywheels of both sides of the business.