Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair and committee members, and thank you for the invitation. I’m Wendy Hannam, executive vice-president for sales and service, products and marketing, in international banking with Scotiabank. Scotiabank is Canada's most international bank, with operat

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you for your question. Scotiabank's involvement in microfinance started when we purchased a bank in Peru. Peru is the most developed country in terms of microfinance, with a long, long history. As we've built the microfinance business inside Scotiabank, we've used the Per

Foreign Affairs committee  We think there's absolutely a role, and we think there's an opportunity for an even closer partnership than what exists today. As I said, I've been working with CIDA for the last year, and we've had some very good discussions. We definitely see opportunities to partner, to work t

Foreign Affairs committee  I've had several meetings with the minister, and also with Margaret Biggs and some of her team, to talk about ways we can partner. Some of the things we've done are sharing names of CIDA and bank officials on the ground so we can facilitate them getting together to talk about t

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes, likewise. Exactly.

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you for your questions. First to the mobile phone question. Today, the service doesn't exist where you can remit funds from Canada to the phone in Haiti; it's an internal Haiti service right now between Digicel and ourselves. But the next evolution of the mobile wallet, wh

Foreign Affairs committee  We think that's a perfect example of ways that we could work with CIDA to foster economic development.

Foreign Affairs committee  I think it's a matter of 30 years—30 to 40 years' headstart in Peru. The business of microfinance had its origins in Peru and Bolivia. It's very well established. Those people who make the loans understand the risks in the business. Obviously, there are much higher loan losses in

Foreign Affairs committee  I think it's absolutely critical everywhere. I think financial literacy should be taught at a much earlier age than it is anywhere in the world today, but especially in developing economies. I mentioned we partner with Junior Achievement. We also produce our own financial educa

Foreign Affairs committee  I'm from the east coast too.

Foreign Affairs committee  The segmentation for us is loans under $2,000 and revenues under $100,000 Canadian. Practically, what it means is it's a way for very unsophisticated business owners to provide for their families. As I mentioned, they don't have financial statements in almost all cases. When yo

Foreign Affairs committee  Not specific to Haiti? I think you're—

Foreign Affairs committee  We always joke that we had a branch in Jamaica long before we had one in Toronto. We started as a bank that was financing trade between the east coast and the Caribbean. That's our history. That's our route. We have 120-plus years of experience in developing markets. Then about

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes, exactly. It's the markets that we know. We wouldn't start a business in a new market, just because of all the things I've said.

Foreign Affairs committee  Not right now. The one in Jamaica that you mentioned...actually in working with CIDA last year we converted the four branches we had opened in that program into our traditional business model, which I think speaks to the success of the program. We don't target microfinance pro