TYM
Tinh Thuong One-member Limited Liability Microfinance Institution (TYM MFI) was initially established in 1992 by the Vietnamese Women’s Union (VWU) to implement the Government’s Poverty Alleviation Program. In 2010, it become the first licensed MFI in Viet Nam. There are four microfinance institutions in Viet Nam licensed by the State Bank (and many additional microfinance projects implemented by NGOs) and TYM is one of the largest MFIs in the country.
TYM's mission is to improve quality of life for low-income women and their families, especially poor and marginalized ones, by providing them with financial and social services that create favorable conditions for their active participation in socio-economic activities and enhance their overall position in society.
TYM offers a wide range of financial services (credit, savings) and social services (training, capacity building, community support, business development) to its clients in 13 provinces and cities in rural and semi urban areas of Viet Nam. It has diverse loan products such as policy loans for women living below poverty lines, loans for near-poor households, multi-purpose loans, business development loans, construction loans, and investment loan. To make its lending more sustainable, TYM has mobilized deposits from its members and the public using market-based interest rates and simple transaction mechanisms (transactions close to clients’ homes, minimal paperwork required).
TYM is committed to a double-bottom line (economic and social returns) business philosophy and has a strong intent to have a social impact. By the end of 2021, TYM
had provided various microfinance services to about 300,000 clients. All loans go to women, mostly poor and low-income customers (80 per cent), while 10 per cent of the loans go to poor
women and 10 per cent to women from better-off families – often larger amount loans for small businesses. The interest rate ranges from 0.08 per cent per week (or around 4.8 per cent per year) to 0.21 per cent per week (or around 10 per cent per year) for microfinance loans. This is affordable to the poor and low-income people. In sum, TYM estimates that through their investments, 120,000 women escaped poverty and 7,000 became micro entrepreneurs.