Banreservas has deepened its Caribbean footprint by increasingly focusing on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), positioning the segment as a growth engine for both the bank and the Dominican economy.
By the end of the review period, SME lending reached $1.32 billion, 14% of the total portfolio, while the customer base expanded 29%, consolidating a 27% share of the national SME market. This growth is a testament to the effectiveness of the lender’s newly created SME division in accelerating capital into a diverse range of sectors in the Dominican economy.
Behind this momentum is the Fomenta Pymes ecosystem, a suite of credit, transactional and advisory tools tailored to entrepreneurs. Its flagship Expo Fomenta Pymes credit fair has become a headline event: during the 2024 edition the bank disbursed 5,800 loans worth $196 million on fixed-rate terms of up to two years, helping businesses finance working capital, property expansions and vehicle fleets.
“The results of ‘Expo Fomenta Pymes 2025’ reflects an important growth, with the disbursement of more than Ps14 billion, benefiting more than 6,500 SME clients, for an achievement of 44% more with respect to the previous edition, with which we reaffirm our commitment to promote the development, growth and innovation of SMEs in the Dominican Republic,” says Juan Carlos Garcia, SME director.
Other successful initiatives include Preserva, a financial literacy and savings programme that has already trained more than 390,000 Dominicans; Coopera, which delivers technical support to producers in vulnerable communities and reached 3,295 participants in 2024 alone; and Cree, the bank’s five-month pre-acceleration programme, which has channelled Ps17 million ($0.28 million) of venture funding into four technology-led startups after reviewing 366 applicants, raising the scheme’s total commitments to Ps76 million across 24 companies.
The [DFC] partnership widens the bank’s capacity to steer concessional funding towards climate-smart investment and gender-inclusive growth, further burnishing its regional credentials
Banreservas’ efforts have also attracted international backing. In a regional first, the US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) extended a $42 million guarantee coverage to underwrite up to $84 million in new lending to women-owned firms, green projects and wider SMEs. The partnership widens the bank’s capacity to steer concessional funding towards climate-smart investment and gender-inclusive growth, further burnishing its regional credentials.
Digital modernisation was another pillar of the bank’s success in the segment. Entrepreneurs now open accounts, manage payroll and obtain business credit cards through the Banreservas app, a channel that in 2024 alone produced more than 300,000 digital savings accounts and 35,000 card issuances.
The app’s functionality dovetails with the Fomenta Pymes ecosystem, where webinars, virtual advisory clinics and card-payment tutorials run with Visa and Mastercard push financial education and modern acceptance technology deep into the country’s small-business base. These same cloud-based processes support credit, feeding digitally captured information into underwriting for working-capital lines and for the DFC-backed green and women-led loan programmes.
“Banreservas drives economic growth in the Dominican Republic by supporting more than 152,000 SMEs with innovative financial solutions, education, advice and the most competitive rate in the market,” says Samuel Pereyra Rojas, executive president. “Our commitment to business development transforms ideas into reality, promotes employment and strengthens the productive ecosystem of the country with vision and proximity.”
