few commercial banks have engaged in profitable microfinance lending despite repeated attempts by donor agencies to entice their entry. the case of banco de la empresa, a latin american private bank, illustrates how penetration of the microenterprise market segment could evolve. this paper reviews the bank's experience with microfinance, what its motivations were for starting such a program, what adjustments it made in operating procedures and what risks the program faced. the study is based on a real experience of the inter-american development bank but in order to preserve the confidentiality of the institution studied, names, dates and other non-critical data were changed.