Context: How Bolsa de Valores de El Salvador works, and what it makes issuers disclose · El Salvador on the LatAm Power Map
El Salvador’s oldest cooperative banking federation has spent 82 years doing one thing — channelling cheap money from global markets to the small businesses and wage-earners the commercial banks ignored. It has never reported a bad loan in living memory.
| Key Facts — Fedecrédito, R.L. de C.V. | |
|---|---|
| Full name | Federación de Cajas de Crédito y de Bancos de los Trabajadores, Sociedad Cooperativa de Responsabilidad Limitada, de Capital Variable |
| Ticker / exchange | FEDECREDITO.SV — Bolsa de Valores de El Salvador (debt securities only; no traded equity) |
| Headquarters | 23 Calle Poniente y 25 Avenida Norte, San Salvador, El Salvador |
| Sector | Cooperative development finance (second-tier financial institution) |
| Employees | Not disclosed in available sources (Federation level) |
| Market value | N/A — cooperative structure; no publicly traded equity |
| Total assets (Dec 2024) | ~$537M (our calculation: equity $192.3M ÷ capital ratio 35.8%) |
| Equity / patrimonio (Dec 2024) | $192.3M (+15.1% YoY) |
| Net profit (FY 2024) | $14.5M (approved by General Assembly, per Bolsa filing) |
| Return on average assets (ROAA) | 4.2% (Moody’s Local, Dec 2025 data) |
| Capital adequacy ratio | 35.8% (regulatory minimum: 12%) |
| Credit rating | AA– (Fitch Centroamérica, national scale) |
| Dividend yield | N/A — profits capitalised as new member shares, not distributed as cash |
| Website | fedecredito.com.sv |
What it is
Fedecrédito is a second-tier financial institution — meaning it lends to other financial cooperatives, not directly to the public. Founded in 1943, it is a 100% privately held Salvadoran cooperative that brings together 47 credit unions and 7 workers’ banks, all specialising in microfinance for lower-income families.
Today the Sistema Fedecrédito is El Salvador’s widest-reach financial network, comprising Fedecrédito itself, those 47 credit unions and 7 workers’ banks, plus Seguros Fedecrédito, Fedecrédito Vida (life insurance), and Fedeservi (services subsidiary). The system operates more than 810 service points across 195 of El Salvador’s 262 municipalities.
Who owns it
Fedecrédito is a federation of financial cooperatives; its clients — the 54 member cooperatives — are also its shareholders. There is no outside investor, no controlling family, and no state stake: every share is held by a member institution.
At December 2024, total equity reached $192.3 million, growing 15.1% in the year, driven by the distribution of dividends as new shares to member entities and by fresh share issuances.
The entity has a long-standing practice of capitalising all its profits as equity rather than paying cash out — which is why the balance sheet grows steadily without external capital injections and why there is no cash dividend yield to report.
Who runs it
Lic. Macario Armando Rosales Rosa is both President of the Board (Consejo Directivo) and CEO of Fedecrédito — a dual role confirmed by the Bolsa de Valores issuer filing.
He has held the position since 2004. He has also been re-elected, for a fourth consecutive term, as Vice-President and Treasurer of the World Savings and Retail Banking Institute (WSBI) board in Paris.
The Consejo Directivo has eight full members: the President and seven directors, of whom five represent the credit unions and two represent the workers’ banks. A CFO-level officer is not separately disclosed in public filings at the Federation level.
The money, in plain words
Fedecrédito has consolidated a leading position in its segment, holding a 30.7% share of total assets and a 24.7% share of the loan portfolio within the cooperative banking system. Its net profit for 2024 was $14.5 million; against total assets of roughly $537 million (our calculation), that is a return on assets of approximately 2.7% — high for a development finance vehicle and consistent with the Moody’s Local figure of 4.2% return on average assets reported on a slightly different asset base at the end of 2025.
Its equity cushion — capital adequacy of 35.8%, nearly three times the 12% legal minimum — and a leverage ratio of 2.5 times, well below the sector average of 3.9 times, mean it can absorb losses that would cripple a typical bank. At the close of December 2024, the institution reported zero overdue loans, zero write-offs, and zero restructured credits — a near-unique record for an emerging-market lender of this size.
What it is doing now
In 2024, Fedecrédito received up to $80 million through El Salvador’s first social bond backed by family remittances — a landmark transaction. IDB Invest partnered with Fedecrédito on the issuance, totalling $80 million, with an initial tranche of up to $40 million, of which IDB Invest subscribed $20 million.
On the technology front, Fedecrédito launched FEDE ID, a biometric facial-recognition tool that replaced token-based security for mobile banking; since its July 2024 launch, 12,718 users registered, completing 129,301 secure authentications. The institution also deployed 12 robotic process-automation bots that saved 3,042 hours across four departments and 48 affiliated institutions, cutting processing time by 73%.
What to watch
- Fedecrédito’s role in the remittances sector surged liquidity by 102.4% in available funds and investments in 2025, and sovereign-debt exposure rose to 0.8 times equity from 0.5 times in 2024 — a concentration worth tracking if El Salvador’s fiscal position deteriorates.
- For 2026, Moody’s Local anticipates that a potential recovery in credit demand could reverse the recent trend of portfolio contraction, which would lift interest income but also test the institution’s historically pristine loan quality.
- Leadership continuity: with the CEO in post since 2004, succession planning is an undisclosed governance variable for a cooperative of this systemic importance.
- With 52.7% of end-clients being women, the ESG credentials underpin access to multilateral and development-finance funding — an advantage that competitors in commercial banking cannot easily replicate.
Sources
- Bolsa de Valores de El Salvador — Fedecrédito issuer directory (board and contact data): bolsadevalores.com.sv — Fedecrédito issuer page
- Bolsa de Valores de El Salvador — PCR rating report, audited financials to 31 December 2024 (April 2025): bolsadevalores.com.sv — PCR April 2025 filing
- Bolsa de Valores de El Salvador — Moody’s Local rating report, 9 April 2026: bolsadevalores.com.sv — Moody’s Local April 2026
- Fedecrédito official website — Sistema and Historia pages: fedecredito.com.sv/historia
- IFC press release — Fedecrédito 2024 social-bond financing: ifc.org — IFC/Fedecrédito 2024
- IDB Invest — First social bond issuance, El Salvador: idbinvest.org — Fedecrédito social bond
- FinDev Canada — Fedecrédito portfolio profile: findevcanada.ca — Fedecrédito
- Fitch Centroamérica rating report (via Bolsa), 26 April 2023: bolsadevalores.com.sv — Fitch 2023
- Market data: EODHD.
This is news, not investment advice.
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