Aleto Auto Parts Rising above the economic storms with FInES loan

Just after one year of operating the business, Laurine Chitonya the Director and owner of Aleto Auto Parts shop in Limbe, Blantyre, managed to obtain a bank loan to boost her business. 
She started the business in 2019, at the peak of Covid 19 pandemic, and things were not very easy but she strived to keep afloat, operating a small spare parts shop that was making less than K100 000 a day in sales. 

It was so clear to her that she needed some boosting to stock most of the spare parts that customers frequently asked for in order to increase the sales but capital was a challenge, and to think of a bank loan with the prevailing rates was a non-starter as it would strain the business, because that meant paying back the loan at high interest rate.

Things turned exciting a year after.  Centenary bank which was formerly "Mybacks Bank” informed me about the Financial Inclusion and Entrepreneurship Scaling (FInES) loan product with low interest rate and I got interested," she recalls. 

She became one of the earliest beneficiaries to access FInES loans when she took K10 million in 2021. "The bank looked at my account performance and gave me K10 million loan which I used to stock my shop and things just improved overnight, making more sales and growing revenue." 

After six months she was further given K17.3 million following an excellent loan servicing, growing the business further and now is making up to K1.7 million sales a day, a dramatic jump from less than K100 000. 

However, operating in an environment with a myriad challenge, the business now faces forex issues as it requires $50 000 every three months and accessing that amount consistently is not easy. 
While efforts are underway by authorities to address the forex challenge, Aleto Auto Parts is at least relishing the glory of FInES boost which has catapulted the business to greater heights. Even the husband of Laurine quit a job at a bank to join his wife run the business. 

"I managed to also employ seven people, some are domestic workers, but they are all supported by this business," she adds. 

Now, she is looking further, seeing the business expand to have several outlets in different parts of the city, even beyond as she plans to attempt a K100 million loan application. With excellent loan performance, so far, this is not a far-fetched dream. 

Her story is a testimony of how supporting small-scale businesses can turn them into bigger ones with more impact on the economy and that is what Reserve Bank of Malawi through FInES project with support from the World Bank envisaged developing the initiative.