Microfinance Focus, June 8, 2011: ACCION International inaugurated on Tuesday a new microfinance institution, ACCION Microfinancas in Manaus, the capital of the state of Amazonas in Brazil's northern region which is a largely underserved microfinance market.

ACCION Microfinancas, which launched unofficially when it began lending operations on February 1st of this year, has Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF) of the Inter-American Development Bank and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) among its co-investors.

ACCION Microfinancas is ACCION's second majority-owned microfinance institution, and follows the establishment, in late 2009, of ACCION Microfinance China, in Inner Mongolia. ACCION Microfinancas will offer lines of credit, longer-term fixed-asset loans, financial education and, eventually, micro-insurance products and credit cards.

The northern region, comprising seven states with a total population of about 14.7 million, is home to an estimated 1.9 million microentrepreneurs, only 8 to 10 percent of whom have been able to access any kind of financial services from banks or microfinance organizations.