Marlon

Marlon Artajo is a 34 year old business man who manage two stalls in the public market of Balamban. He is married to Jeresa and they have one child aged 11 months. They all live in a village called Vito in the town of Balamban in Cebu province.

Marlon rented one stall in the town's public market of Balamban three years ago. His stall is open every day from 8 in the morning until 7 in the evening. He sells various products such as mobile phones and accessories, cosmetics, sunglasses, batteries, computer parts and more. He also offers services like photo ID, photocopying, lamination, printing and downloading movies, apps and songs. He manages the shop all day and hires his niece every time he goes to the city to purchase stock to sell or if he has other urgent things to do.

Two years ago, he rented another stall next door. He runs a barber shop there. He employs two barbers and pays them 340 pesos each (about £5.78) per day. Every day they serve between 30 and 50 customers and each customer pays 50 pesos (about 76 pence). He rents each stall for 5,000 pesos (about £76) a month. Last October, Marlon became a mobile phone stockist. He sells prepaid credit to all networks. He now has regular dealers who purchase credit at his shop. In a week he can sell more than 15,000 Philippine pesos (about £228) worth of credit.

To increase his investment in both businesses, Marlon has been accessing loans from Lendwithcare's microfinance partner, MFI-Lamac. He has been a member for over two years now and repaid four previous loans. His last loan was to buy 50,000 pesos (about £761) worth of credit for his mobile phone business. Recently, he requested another loan in order to renew his business permit for the two stalls that cost him 10,000 pesos (about £152). He will use the remaining loan proceeds to purchase mobile phones and accessories, helmets, photo papers, bond papers, ink, laminating films and other stock that he sells at his shop. Having these items at his shop will help him to generate more income daily. Marlon hopes and prays that with the help of the loan his business will progress even more in the future. He promises to repay the loan over a period of six months.