VisionFund (Cambodia)'s significant growth

VisionFund (Cambodia), part of VisionFund International’s global micro-institution network operating in 47 countries under World Vision entities, has experienced significant growth since its commercial inception five years ago.

VisionFund served nearly 54,000 families with a loan portfolio of close to US$11 million in 2007, positively impacting more than 200,000 children. This is a remarkable increase from about 34,000 families it served with a loan portfolio of about US$5.2 million in 2006.

The organization, working in synergistic partnership with World Vision Cambodia to help the poor liberate themselves from poverty, had only 17,400 clients in 2003 when it transformed from a credit program of World Vision Cambodia into a commercial firm. The transformation was a result of requirements and regulations developed by the National Bank of Cambodia as well as the government to protect the benefit of stakeholders in Cambodia’s entire microfinance sector.

“The achievement VisionFund has made has not happened by chance. VisionFund  intends to employ management and staff who have a strong passion and commitment to helping Cambodia’s poor,” the organization’s Executive Director, Bora Omseng, said during the celebration of VisionFund’s 2007 achievement in February in Phnom Penh.

Thirty three percent, 46 percent, 20 percent and 1 percent of VisionFund’s loan clients were the poorest, the poor, the not-so-poor and the none-poor respectively.

“Thanks to the loans I fires received in 2004, my family is living a better life—more food and revenues. I used the credit to buy pigs, then sold them to get money to a run a mobile shop,” client Pe Chea says. “With current daily income, my children can attend school. I’m very happy.”

With financial sustainability, VisionFund never forgets its social focus. It is always strengthening socially oriented strategies including the provision of scholarship for best clients’ children, training on basic financial management and business skills as well as the promotion of social issues such as domestic violence, HIV/AIDS and gender equity.

Scholarship holder Y Maony has become happier at school due to school materials provided by Vision Fund’s Children Scholarship Program.

“I’m extremely delighted. I have never proper uniforms and school materials—these things I didn’t have before,” Maony says smilingly. Recalling the past, she says he once felt a bit shamed when classmates suggested her uniform should be used clothes to clean the wooden panels of a bed as it was torn and old.

“Now I feel more confident in class. I will study harder to stand out in class,” stresses Maony, whose story can serve an as example of other five children who receives annual sponsorship from Vision Fund until they finish high school.

Her Excellency Tal Nay Im, Director General of the National Bank of Cambodia, has appreciated VisionFund’s success, saying: “I would like to mention VisionFund’s success to reflect the essence of a model for other micro institutions to learn from…and hope that [it] will continue to accomplish future good work.”

VisionFund currently has a total asset of more than US$13 million with financial self-sufficiency ratio of 113 percent. In 2010, it plans to offer about US$45 million to 150,000 clients, of which at least 70 percent will be women. 

Realizing that financial services are not the only tool for economic development and poverty alleviation, VisionFund has forged and implemented synergistic cooperation and partnership with various development NGOs in addition to World Vision Cambodia including Khmer HIV/AIDS NGO Alliance (KHANA), Plan International Cambodia and International Labor Organization Cambodia. Such integration contributes to enabling outreach and social impact, shaping VisionFund (Cambodia)’s strategic approach, uniqueness, and competitiveness.

“Khana is very proud …to be a partner of VisionFund for providing credits to the poor, especially families affected by HIV/AIDS,” Khana Program Director Tith Khimuy says. “Such partnership is the first of its kind in Cambodia to incorporate microfinance into home-based care services.

“The small credit is a crucial means of bettering my living conditions,” client Mao Sothea, who lives with AIDS, says of VisionFund’s financial services in partnership with Khana. “I have many pigs. They are growing well thanks to the knowledge I have gained from Kasekor Thmey [or New Farmer, a local partner of Khana].