Home for life - A women support project

Roughly 69% of Vietnam citizens lack access to bank loans or formal financial services. For example, women living in rural or mountainous areas and ethnic minorities, face significant hurdles in accessing finance. Furthermore, banking regulations - such as requirements for collateral, proof of income, or guarantors - create barriers for single women, those without private assets, or those lacking stable employment. This is particularly true for victims of human trafficking or domestic violence who may face social stigma.

Additionally, a lack of information and basic knowledge regarding financial management and business planning serves as a major obstacle.

Fulfilling the company's mission of assisting clients to gain financial independence and have a satisfactory life, Home Credit focuses on helping these women through financial support, training for financial literacy and livelihood skills. Above all, the company thrives to open financial access opportunities to vulnerable groups, aligning with the government's National Comprehensive Financial Strategy to 2025, with orientation to 2030.

Home for Life program from Home Credit Vietnam to support women entail the following goals:

Commitment to efficient capital use

Unlike many projects that give one-time cash gifts, Home for Life provides 0% interest loans. This ensures recipients work proactively to generate products and income to repay the loan upon maturity.

Provide financial literacy and counselling

Marginalised women with insufficient financial literacy pose a difficulty for them to manage their loans effectively. Therefore, the project extends beyond mere capital support to provide education and financial counselling, boosting their confidence in business planning so that they can better deploy their own financial plan.

Strong local cooperation and local community support development

Rather than working directly with individual households, the program maintains in close collaboration with women unions from each province, ensuring the raches the right people. These local unions also provide deep, day-to-day engagement so that women can feel more at ease to confide in their struggles.

Objective

The Home for Life program was born under these objectives and motivations:

Access to reliable services for women

The Home for Life project serves as a bridge, enabling women to access financial services easily and reliably. Home Credit provide 0% interest packages to women to alleviate their financial struggles and foster a favorable environment for women to achieve financial independence, empower them to make decisions, control their personal finances, and enhance their overall economic capacity.

Elevate financial literacy for women

The project provides education to help women use their funds effectively, boosting their confidence in personal financial management. Home Credit wants to assist women on their finance journey, learning how to manage and use resource effectively.

Raise awareness about women's role and reduce inequalities

Home for Life also serves as a solution to reduce financial inequality for women by introducing policies that meet their unique needs, ensuring fairness in the access and use of financial services. Regardless of living areas or income level, the project focuses on raising awareness of women's roles and reducing inequality.

Sustainable community commitment

Home Credit Vietnam is dedicate its work for the sake of sustainable community and society development. This project aligns with the company's vision and core values – create a better future for Vietnamese women and family.

Aspired to empower women to take control of their own lives, Home for Life provides 0% interest loan packages to disadvantaged women nationwide, especially in mountainous and remote areas, ethnic minority women, and vulnerable groups such as victims of domestic violence and human trafficking. The program aligns with the Government's orientation on the National Financial Inclusion Strategy and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs):

• SDG 1: No Poverty
• SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth
• SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities

Implementation process – Scope – Cost

Since 2014, Home Credit Vietnam has allocated an annual budget for interest-free loans. Over nine years, the program has expanded across provinces including Ho Chi Minh City, Ha Nam, Nghe An, Vinh Phuc, Bac Giang, Bac Kan, Hanoi, Yen Bai, Ca Mau, Dong Thap, and more. Targeted households, all were women in difficult situations and unstable jobs (with approval from local Women Union), were each given a 10 million VND loan with 0% interest.

The Women Association and Women Support Centres directly handled and represented Home Credit to manage the funds as well as monitoring loan usage for proper allocations, creating values and productivity for women to improve their lives and guarantee repayment capacity upon loan maturity dates. Moreover, it also collaborated with local organisations to bring workshops about financial literacy and livelihood skills for women.

Thanks to effective management and usage, the loan capital has been repaid at the end of each term and rotated over many years, ensuring continuous impact and the program's sustainability. The continuation and recycling of these interest-free loans show Home Credit commitment to social responsibility, boosting the production and business activities of small-scale households and empowering women to improve their economic and family situations.

The program has delivered clear, positive impacts, having supported 227 beneficiary households with a total loan capital reaching up to 3 billion VND. Thanks to many interest-free loan packages, 3,200 people have gained direct access to this funding. Moreover, the program has been implemented across 25 areas nationwide, expanding this opportunity to other communities.

Home for Life has a significant potential for scalability to bring many impact to Vietnamese women:

1. Expand target recipients: Beyond the 0% interest loans, the project also motivates women to strive for economic empowerment, develop business models, and improve their quality of life through various preferential packages. These come with additional benefits tailored to the needs, income, and purposes of diverse customer groups. The specialized design of these loan packages provides women with more choices and ensures they receive the best support for their specific borrowing needs. Furthermore, the project offers training and consultancy programs, helping many women gain the essential ability to manage personal and family finances in a smart and sustainable manner.
2. Cooperate with organisations and partners: The project would establish cooperation with NGOs, civil organisations and other enterprises to strengthen its impact and scope.
3. Utilising technology and social media to spread the program's message: Using Home Credit's available mobile applications, websites and social media platforms to promote the program and create online communities to share its benefits to women.