Arc Finance

Changing Lives Through Access to Finance for Clean Energy and Water

 

Latest News

Lighting the Lives of the Rural Poor
USAID

Bringing light to Haiti, one solar lamp at a time
CBS Evening News

Interview with Niki Armacost of Arc Finance and Dominique Policard of Sogexpress about Arc Finance's Remittances Project in Haiti
NBC Miami & Tropik TV

Where innovation pays off: Helping low-income Haitians access environmentally-friendly energy products
November 2012 FOMIN

Stima Systems' Group Microleasing Model - Promoting Payment and Reducing Risk at the Group Level
July 2012 Arc Finance Case Study

Arc Finance Podcast: Fiza Farhan, CEO, The Buksh Foundation
July 2012 Arc Finance Podcast

Using Energy Products and Other Initiatives to Spur Growth at a Philippine MFI
August 2012 Arc Finance Blog

How Women Are Powering Energy Access in Uganda
June 2012 Arc Finance Blog

Financing Sustainable Enery: An Optimistic View From Niki Armacost
July 11, 2012 Ashden Blog

Climate Scope 2012 Report featuring Arc's Haiti Remittances Project
July 2012 Inter-American Development Bank Report

Can The Microfinance Sector Help Deliver Clean Energy?
May 14, 2012 CGAP Blog

Managing Director and Co-Founder Nicola Armacost on Microfinance
Link TV: Television Without Borders

Photo: man operating grinding machine

Innovation Funding

Arc Finance provides financial support to microfinance and other finance institutions, in addition to energy/water enterprises, to both spur product innovation and to support business incubation for energy and water lending.

Despite recent progress in energy lending, a clear need exists for innovation in products and business models to reach significant scale in energy lending. Small, local businesses in both the energy and water sectors often lack the resources to experiment with products and processes that will be more affordable or accessible to their customers. A lack of appropriate financing mechanisms forces most energy and water enterprises to use scarce working capital to innovate products that will meet the needs of lower-income populations.

Arc Finance provides innovation funding, or seed capital, to microfinance institutions & energy/water enterprises to develop new products, business models, delivery, and payment mechanisms that will increase access to clean energy and water. This innovation funding is aimed at developing and testing new approaches that have the potential for rapid scale and that are replicable.