Loan Products
Providing microcredit to vulnerable households is the largest activity VisionFund undertakes. Providing financial options such as small loans - some worth just US $20 - can be the change a family needs to break free from the poverty cycle.
The Power of Microcredit
Microfinance describes a range of small-scale financial services – including microcredit, microinsurance, and microsavings – that help the world’s poorest people become financially sustainable. These products are at the core of VisionFund’s work.
Microcredit is one of the most effective ways VisionFund empowers families to break the cycle of poverty. By providing a small loan with a competitive interest rate, we can assist our clients with financial options to begin or expand a small business to generate an income. This income can then provide for household needs, such as school fees, medical expenses, and nutritious food. Our clients can then pay back the loan over time. Many of VisionFund’s clients go on to take larger loans as their businesses expand. This increases their profits and helps them to build new and better lives for their families. As of 2019, VisionFund has a $426m loan portfolio serving 28 countries, and over one million active borrowers.
We provide many types of loan, ensuring that the right product is available to best serve our clients’ needs – and to empower them on the path out of poverty.
Agrifinance and Crop and Livestock Insurance
Our innovative combined credit and insurance product helps farmers prepare for risks to their livelihoods, while remaining protected if emergency strikes. Insurance improves farmer resilience, and helps to provide for household needs no matter what the weather.
Recovery Lending
VisionFund is helping communities recover when disaster strikes. We're restructuring old loans, creating new business plans, and injecting new loans into the market.
Personal Loan Pilot Projects
VisionFund is currently undertaking three microloan pilots. The pilots allow households to access clean water, pay for children’s education, and to provide solar power to families and businesses.
Savings Group Loans
By supplying savings groups with loans of their own, VisionFund is enabling savings group members to grow their businesses in new ways.
Small and Growing Business Loans
Small and medium enterprises are often left behind when it comes to accessing finance. They are often considered too large for a microloan, but too small to access formal banking services. VisionFund is piloting an innovative new program to ensure that this ‘missing middle’ is served by the right loan products.
Client Impact Stories
Dream to Create More Jobs for Her Community
Thin Thin Hlaing is an owner of Karen traditional dress shops and she is also well known as a woman entrepreneur who is leading the traditional weaving design industry in her native region, Hpa-An. She has been in this business for seven years now and her business continues to thrive. Read how a Small and Growing Business loan helped expand her business.
Not So Run Of The Mill
Daw Saw Saw Win, like many women in Myanmar, left her family to move to Yangon for work. When her mother passed away, she had to return to manage the family’s business. Together with her brother, they ran a rice milling and wholesale business. Taking on this responsibility was not easy, nor was maintaining and growing the newly inherited business. Read how a Small and Growing Business Loan from VisionFund Myanmar transformed the family business.
Mercy: Rising Out of Poverty
Mercy is a bread baker in Ghana who took out her first loan when she was 41 years old grow her business. Since taking out her first loan in 2000 she has grown her business and is now full of joy at how far she has come and the loan has improved the life of her children and family. Read more about how Mercy has risen out of poverty.