Banking Pilot Project for Artisanal Miners of Antioquia
“Building Trust”
Alliance for Responsible Mining (ARM) and the Dialogue Group on Mining in Colombia (GDIAM) initiate pilot project for financial inclusion in territories of Bajo Cauca and Southwest Antioqueño, initially identifying the information needs of both the mining and banking sectors to facilitate access to the financial system and strengthen transparency tools between both sectors.
The main objective is to generate spaces of interaction and trust between the financial sector and the mining sector, which facilitate the deepening of banking products in Bajo Cauca Antioqueño and the access to financing by miners in the region, through strengthening of due diligence tools, access to mining information and two-way education, says Maria Camila Muñoz, Sales and Exports Specialist at Alliance for Responsible Mining (ARM).
The relationship, awareness, and application of new knowledge are the pillars of the banking pilot, generating technical inputs with a pedagogical approach for banking establishments to improve their understanding of the mining sector and, also generate technical inputs with a pedagogical approach for mining agents to improve their understanding of the demands of the financial sector. A good opportunity to start a relationship between both parties.
From our best practice model, we seek to design compliance and risk management based on the CRAFT Code, whose correct and adequate implementation increases the possibility of access to MAPE banking and also reduces the uncertainty associated with information asymmetries in the financial sector.
The National Mining Agency, the Ministry of Mines and Energy, Asobancaria, the United Nations-PlanetGold program, the National University of Colombia, ARM, and GDIAM will be in charge of generating the training content for 39 miners in the department.
GDIAM and ARM will ensure that the beneficiaries have met the requirements of being artisanal miners from Antioquia, previously involved in ARM projects, who passed the background review process and are regularized or in the process of regularization.