Visa backed one idea that turned into $4 billion lifeline | Official Website of Louis Velazquez, entrepreneur, finance guy and tech innovator

In 1990, two educators in Bolivia asked a simple question: What happens when women who want to start businesses cannot get a single dollar in credit?

The answer became Pro Mujer, a social enterprise that has spent 35 years trying to close that gap across Latin America.

Pro Mujer has now awarded more than $4.4 billion in microloans. The organization operates across multiple Latin American countries and recently expanded its digital training platform into the United States.

Visa’s Foundation helped accelerate that growth. An initial $1 million grant funded a digital platform called Emprende Pro Mujer, which teaches financial literacy, business skills, and entrepreneurship to women who have been shut out of the traditional banking system.

If you run a small business, invest in companies like Visa (V), or simply believe small businesses drive the economy, this partnership illustrates a model worth understanding. It also highlights a financing gap that affects hundreds of millions of entrepreneurs worldwide.

How a $1 million Visa Foundation grant reached 250,000 entrepreneurs

The Visa Foundation provided Pro Mujer with an initial $1 million grant to build and pilot the Emprende Pro Mujer platform, a Spanish-language digital hub that provides business training, financial education, mentorship, and sales skills to women entrepreneurs across the region.

The pilot reached 25,000 women entrepreneurs. Of those, 84% said they would recommend the platform to others, and 80% said it helped them improve their business, Visa reported.

The results were strong enough that Visa Foundation committed an additional $3 million over three years to scale the program across Mexico, Argentina, Bolivia, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Peru, as the same report indicated.

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The program launched in the United States in 2023, offering resources to Latin American women migrants through a partnership launched at the Clinton Global Initiative. By 2027, Visa Foundation and Pro Mujer expect the Emprende platform to reach 250,000 entrepreneurs across 23 countries in Latin America, as outlined by Visa.

Visa Foundation’s total impact extends well beyond Pro Mujer. Over the past eight years, the foundation has worked with more than 150 organizations worldwide, reaching an estimated 12 million small and microbusinesses and supporting 14 million jobs, according to Visa.

Pro Mujer grew from a classroom idea in Bolivia into a $4.4 billion lending operation

Pro Mujer’s origins trace back to El Alto, Bolivia, where teachers Lynne Patterson and Carmen Velasco heard from local women who needed money to grow their businesses and continue their educations. Patterson and Velasco traveled to Bangladesh to study the microfinance model pioneered by Muhammad Yunus and returned to build their own version for Latin America.

The model they built is different from a typical lender. Pro Mujer combines microloans with entrepreneurship training, financial education, and preventive health services including mammograms, blood sugar screenings, and reproductive health care.

The idea is that a small loan alone is not enough. Women also need the skills and support to use that capital effectively.

Over 35 years, in addition to disbursing billions in microloans, Pro Mujer has provided more than 10 million preventive health services and impacted the lives of more than 2.5 million women. The organization operates directly in several Latin American countries and partners with fintechs and digital banks to extend its reach.

Carmen Correa, Pro Mujer’s CEO since 2017, has described the organization’s clients as women caught in a systemic bind.

They run businesses, employ people, and support families, but cannot access traditional bank credit because they lack collateral, credit history, or formal employment records. Pro Mujer fills that gap with small loans and wraparound support.

Women-led businesses in Latin America face hugefinancing gap

The financing shortfall for women-led small and medium enterprises in Latin America is approximately $93 billion, according to the International Finance Corporation. For micro-enterprises, the gap is an additional $5 billion, IFC data reveal.

The Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean reports that only 49% of women in the region have a bank account, only 11% are able to save through formal channels, and just 10% have access to credit, World Bank data indicate.

Meanwhile, women entrepreneurs in the region are 40% more likely than men to start businesses out of necessity rather than opportunity, according to research published in the Journal of Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

“Women are catalysts of development, drivers of local economies and job creators. The skills taught via Emprende Pro Mujer empower women, boost economic independence and facilitate personal and professional growth,” said Correa, speaking at the Clinton Global Initiative.

Roughly 70% of women-owned small businesses in emerging markets have unmet financing needs, and as many as 67% of all small businesses worldwide are fighting for survival, Visa Foundation cited in its impact report.

A $1 million Visa Foundation grant helped build a platform now reaching 250,000 women entrepreneurs.

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One entrepreneur’s results show how model works in practice

María Elena, a popotillo artist in Mexico featured in Visa’s reporting, is one example of the program’s results. She started selling handcrafted art at local fairs 30 years ago. She was the first in her family to practice the craft, but struggled to find the financial or business support needed to scale her small business, as reported by Visa.

After completing courses through the Emprende Pro Mujer platform, she learned how to price her work, manage cash flow, and find new sales channels. Within two years of applying what she learned, her sales increased by 230%, and she expanded her team from three employees to nine.

What small business owners and investors can take from the Pro Mujer story

The Visa-Pro Mujer partnership offers practical lessons for different audiences. For small business owners, it highlights resources that exist beyond traditional banks. For investors, it shows how companies like Visa generate goodwill and deepen their footprint in underserved markets.

For small business owners and aspiring entrepreneurs

Microfinance is a real option: In the U.S., the Small Business Administration’s microloan program provides up to $50,000 in funding for small businesses. The average SBA microloan is approximately $13,000. Nonprofits and community development financial institutions also offer small-dollar lending with more flexible terms than traditional banks.
Free training platforms exist: Pro Mujer’s Emprende platform is free and available in Spanish in the U.S., Pro Mujer confirmed. The SBA also offers free business planning tools, and organizations like SCORE provide free mentorship from experienced business professionals.
Combine capital with skills: Pro Mujer’s data shows that pairing loans with financial education and training produces stronger outcomes than lending alone. If you take on a loan, invest time in learning how to manage cash flow, pricing, and record-keeping alongside it.

For investors watching Visa

Foundation work supports the core business: Visa’s foundation efforts expand its brand presence in markets where digital payments are growing fastest. As more women-owned businesses enter the formal financial system, they become future Visa customers.
Financial inclusion is a growth market: The global microfinance sector is projected to exceed $500 billion by 2030. Companies that build trust and infrastructure in underserved markets today are positioning themselves for decades of transaction volume growth.

$4 billion loan total reflects what happens when small loans reach right people

Pro Mujer’s $4.4 billion in cumulative microloans did not come from a single corporate check. It was built one loan at a time, starting with small amounts in community lending groups where borrowers vouch for each other.

Visa’s $1 million grant did not fund the loans themselves. It funded the digital infrastructure that helps borrowers learn how to use that capital effectively, as indicated by Visa.

Microfinance works best when it is not treated as a handout. Pro Mujer’s borrowers repay their loans, grow their businesses, and in many cases employ others. The model is self-sustaining because it treats small business owners as capable participants in the economy, not as people who need rescuing.

For Visa, the investment is small relative to the company’s scale. Visa reported fiscal Q1 2026 net revenue of approximately $10.9 billion, according to its quarterly earnings report.

But the foundation’s work reaches into markets where Visa wants to grow. Every entrepreneur who opens a bank account, receives a digital payment, or processes a transaction through formal channels is a potential long-term customer.