At the European Good Practices Microfinance Award ceremony held in London, the Dutch microcredit foundation – Qredits, has been selected as the winner amongst five other finalists from across Europe. As a reward the company received a cheque of e50,000 which must be reinvested in new projects or in existing services from which socially excluded people could benefit. The event was part of the European Year 2010 for combating poverty and social exclusion.

The European Good Practices Microfinance Award was launched in 2008 by the European Microfinance Network and the Fondazione Giordano Dell’Amore. Its main objective has been to raise awareness about the importance of microfinance as a tool in assisting entrepreneurial initiatives of socially excluded people, whilst at the same time encourages the sharing of European socially-oriented microfinance experience.

Qredits was founded in 2008 with the main intention of financing entrepreneurs in Holland that have no access to traditional financial services such as women, migrants, ethnic minorities, young people or start-ups. With its award-winning initiative entitled “A new sustainable approach to microfinance. Blend of traditional and sophisticated IT support”, Qredits created a new approach based primarily on the foundation’s refined IT combined with voluntary coaching to sustain its clients.

Since the inception of the project in 2009, Qredits had 510 borrowers and an exceptional loan portfolio of e9,926,335. On the other hand their average loan size amounts to e21,176. Currently, Qredits provide up to e35,000 in loans to its clients of which 31 per cent are women, at a fixed rate of 9.5 per cent, and maturity maximum 10 years. Qredits was selected as the winner amongst other finalists from the United Kingdom, Belgium, Macedonia and Bosnia & Herzegovina. The European Good Practices Microfinance Award was open to all European organisations which are related to microfinance in all the EU member states, candidate countries and EFTA/EEA States.