DFCC Bank hosted representatives of Bhutan Development Bank Limited and the Asian Development Bank’s Bhutan Resident Mission for a five-day exchange on inclusive finance, enterprise development and sustainable funding.
The programme examined how DFCC supports small businesses and women customers, and what of that approach could be adapted to Bhutan’s market.
What the delegation reviewed
Participants went through two DFCC propositions in detail:
- DFCC Pragathi, which serves micro, small and medium enterprises
- DFCC Aloka, aimed at women across personal, professional and entrepreneurial banking
Discussions covered how those services are built and delivered — marketing, operations, credit assessment and collections — rather than product design alone. The programme also considered how access to finance can be combined with business knowledge, capability development, professional networks and market access, a recurring theme in development banking where credit on its own tends to underperform.
The delegation met businesses across several sectors to see the approach applied in practice. DFCC’s Investment Banking and Sustainability teams ran separate sessions on concessional funding, impact investment and the use of the UN Sustainable Development Goals in structuring financial products.
DFCC Director and Chief Executive Officer Thimal Perera described the exchange as an opportunity to share the bank’s development-finance experience, learn from counterparts and explore stronger institutional links supporting small businesses and women entrepreneurs.
The institutional link
All three institutions are connected through the Association of Development Financing Institutions in Asia and the Pacific (ADFIAP). DFCC and Bhutan Development Bank are members; the ADB holds special membership.
DFCC hosted ADFIAP’s 49th Annual Meetings in Colombo in September and is a founding and charter member of the association. Daily FT notes the bank’s development-finance heritage spans more than seven decades, and that it was established as Sri Lanka’s pioneer development finance institution.
Not reported
Neither filing gives the dates of the five-day programme, so its position relative to the September ADFIAP meetings is not established. Neither says how many people attended, names anyone in the visiting delegation, or identifies the businesses the delegation met.
No financial commitment is reported. Nothing in either filing indicates that the exchange produced an agreement, a memorandum or a funding line — it is described as a knowledge-sharing programme, and the “opportunities for continued cooperation” language is not attached to anything specific.
No figures are given for DFCC Pragathi or DFCC Aloka: no portfolio size, customer numbers or lending volumes appear, so the scale of the propositions being shared is not on the record.
On sourcing: two verified newsrooms carried this on 29 October, and both are evidently working from the same DFCC release — the passages on Pragathi, Aloka and ADFIAP membership track each other closely. Daily FT adds the background on DFCC’s origins; Colombo Gazette carries the chief executive’s remarks at greater length. They corroborate the announcement, not each other’s reporting.
