History - Milestones
1986
Providing small grants for poor people in the Lower Garagoda village in Yatiyantota division managed by Mrs. Eva Mudalige and village leaders
1992
Berendina Foundation started to provide financial and other services for deserving families in Garagoda and to all the villages in Yatiyantota division and Bulathkohupitiya division since 1992. Initially the Foundation provided interest free loans to micro entrepreneurs with the grants received from Berendina Stichting in Netherlands and gradually increased the interest rates over the years.
2007
Financial service operation of Berendina Foundation was incorporated as a separate legal entity under the name of Berendina Microfinance Institute (Gte) Ltd (BMI) under the Companies Act No. 17 of 1982 as a guaranteed company. Commenced operations in Anuradhapura, Kegalle and Nuwara Eliya Districts
2008
Re-registered BMI under the Companies Act No. 7 of 2007.
2010
Commenced operations in Trincomalee District.
2013
Commenced operations in Batticaloa District.
2014
Incorporated Berendina Micro Investments Co Ltd (BMIC) under the Companies Act No. 7 of 2007 mainly to approach the foreign borrowing as the Guaranteed companies are prohibited to do so. Accordingly, both BMI & BMIC continued their operations parallelly.
2016
Commenced operations in Ampara, Kilinochchi, Mullaitivu, and Vavuniya districts. Applying triple bottom-line approach of People, Planet & Profit the organization initiated Environmental Protection Program.
2017
Microfinance operations of both BMI & BMIC were merged in order to provide extensive services to its clients and continued all operations under one wing as BMIC. The sister organization, Berendina Development Services (Gte) Ltd (BDS) become the only shareholder of BMIC.
2019
BMIC became the first License Microfinance Company to be certified under the Microfinance Act No. 6 of 2016 from the Central Bank of Sri Lanka. As regulated organization, BMIC commenced micro savings. Launched an ecommerce website under the name ekade.lk in order to support rural producers to market their products.
Commenced operations in Badulla District.
2020
As a step to further the improvement in governance structure of BMIC, the shareholding structure was changed as 75% hold by founder Berendina Stichting and 25% by previous shareholder BDS.Commenced operations in Badulla District.
