DFC Launches Corporate Relations Department to Enhance Customer Focus

The Development Finance Corporation (DFC) is working to improve relations with its large-scale clients through its newly launched Corporate Relations Department. The new department was officially launched today and forms a part of the DFC’s ongoing rebranding exercise, which sees the development bank taking an increased customer focus. Chairman of the DFC Raineldo Guerrero, says the DFC created the department after assessing which customers represented the largest share of incoming revenue. 

Rained Guerrero, Chairman, DFC: “Talking from an evolutionary point of view if you look at, I don’t know if you’re familiar with the 80/20 rule. But 20% of our customers, and I’m using 20 as a standard it doesn’t have to be exact 20 but the 80/20 rule basically says that 20% of your customers bring in 80% of your revenue and 80% of your customers bring in 20. And this was a concept that we learned, for example I was at BTL for almost twenty years and we also took that approach, a customer service management and we again separated a hundred of our top customers and we saw that they brought in so much revenue and we felt that we had to establish our departments in such a way. We’re not taking away the focus from the mortgages and the education but what we’re saying is we’re strengthening the group that supports this larger financial contributor to the economy of Belize not just to DFC and so that was part of it.”

Guerrero says that the new department will help to better service the agriculture sector, which has the highest level of risk when it comes to issuing loans. 

Rained Guerrero, Chairman, DFC: “The biggest attributes that the DFC comes on is that of a risk appetite. And the risk appetite is driven by the developmental mantra that drives us. So while we are not like the other banks who are protecting depositor’s money we are linked with other organizations who also have a developmental imperative. And so the productive sector is one that has the greatest risk. Agriculture has the greatest risk. Climate, pestilence, price, you know if there is something that will affect an industry talk about agriculture. Agriculture just I meant the drought that we experienced just recently affects cattle, affects the growth, affects sugar cane, affects every single. But because these are huge industries we’re talking banana, we’re talking citrus, we’re talking aquaculture, we’re talking sugar cane these are huge industries they employ a lot of people, they provide economic value to families, to communities, to complete districts that are known as sugar belts or citrus belts so they are core industries that provide. We because of our risk appetite, because of our development mantra that we have we tend to push the envelope a little bit, push the envelope a little bit more than the normal lending institutions.”

Unlike traditional banks, which provide loans through customer deposits, the DFC borrows money from financial institutions and partner organizations to issue loans to its customers. Those loans come with various conditions that need to be met, such as ensuring that projects minimize negative environmental impact.