ShoreBank Corporation

ShoreBank Corporation is America's first community development and environmental bank-holding company with a triple bottom line mission focused on building wealth for communities, promoting environmental health, and operating profitably. Headquartered in Chicago, ShoreBank is a $2.1 billion company with banks and nonprofits in Chicago; Cleveland; Detroit; Ilwaco, Washington; Portland, Oregon; and Michigan's Upper Peninsula; and consulting services around the world. ShoreBank has operated for more than thirty years in over twenty countries, and in partnership with over forty-five local financial institutions to strengthen and increase financial sustainability and profitability. It uses a collaborative private sector approach with a focus on building sustainable solutions.

ShoreBank’s services to local customers by banks and nonprofit affiliates include: residential real estate loans, loans to small businesses, faith-based and nonprofit organizations, environmental conservation loans, and bank deposits and retail services. The ShoreBank Corporation also provides services to financial services companies through the Center for Financial Services Innovation, which works with organizations committed to providing affordable financial services to the underbanked in the U.S., and ShoreBank International, which provides consulting and training services to financial institutions in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, and South America. ShoreBank also acts as a Fund Advisor to the National Community Investment Fund, which invests equity and debt in banks, thrifts and credit unions with a primary mission of community development. 

ShoreCap Venture

In late 2003, ShoreBank Corporation created two new companies, ShoreCap International (SCI) and ShoreCap Exchange (Exchange), a 501(C)(3), in response to the dearth of access to sustainable financial services among the poor in developing countries. The ShoreCap initiative is premised on the belief that enabling banks to increase financial access to underserved entrepreneurs and households can have a catalytic effect on stimulating growth in incomes and jobs among underserved and poorer populations. The need is particularly dramatic in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia where poverty is greatest.

The ShoreCap venture uses a two-pronged approach through a ‘Capital Plus’ model, to support local banks and MFIs that have a development mission:

1) ShoreCap International invests equity and provides structured debt to small business-oriented banks and microfinance institutions in Africa, Asia, and to a lesser extent in Eastern Europe.

2) ShoreCap Exchange facilitates capacity building to the investee banks via onsite consulting and knowledge exchange program. Exchange is also dedicated to serving the wider development finance industry, particularly practitioners and financial institutions, through its peer learning and knowledge exchange platform.