The Banco de Chile SME Program is a comprehensive ecosystem that pairs SMEs with strategic allies and actors in the world of entrepreneurship in order to generate real business opportunities. It is based on three strategic objectives: increasing sales, improving business management and promoting entrepreneurship. During 2022, this initiative benefited more than 168 thousand companies throughout Chile, enabling them to boost their potential based on the stage of their development, providing them with efficient tools to drive digitalization, delivering valuable content for training and involving them in entrepreneurship and mentoring programs.
Likewise, Banco de Chile’s entrepreneurship support objective serves as a factor of change and development in society. One case in point is the three contests organized by the bank as part of its commitment to Chile:
- National Entrepreneur Challenge Competition: As the oldest of the corporation's entrepreneurship support programs, this contest attracts close to 30,000 applicants each year. The winner of the 6th version, which began in 2021, was chosen in early 2022, while the finalists of the 7th version were selected in late 2022 for the winners to be announced in 2023.
- National Entrepreneurial Impact Competition: This contest is targeted toward students from universities and technical training centers throughout Chile. The winners of the 2nd version, all innovative projects with scalability potential, were from the Metropolitan, Biobío and Valparaíso regions.
- National School Entrepreneurship Contest ""Impacto Emprendedor"": This program seeks to train agents of change and encourage the development of innovative solutions that have an impact on society. It is focused on teachers and their respective students in 7th to 12th grade from schools throughout the country. In its first version, held in September 2022, 290 teams applied and 116 teachers participated in the UDD School Entrepreneurship Mentor Certification and the UDD School Entrepreneurship Academy training programs.
- Routes for Chile: This digital showcase of more than 700 local tourism entrepreneurs lets users build a trip from start to finish to different destinations around the country. In 2022, three new routes were added, bringing the total to nine:
- Northern Zone Desert Route and Elqui Route
- Central Zone Northern Coastal Route, Colchagua Valley Route (new) and Santiago and Surroundings Route (new)
- Southern Zone Lakes and Volcanoes Route, Chiloé Route, Northern Austral Highway Route, Puerto Natales and Torres del Paine Route (new)
