CEP

The Capital Aid Fund for Employment of the Poor (CEP) was founded in 1991 as a non-profit social institution by the Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) Labor Confederation, a labor trade union affiliated with the Communist Party of Vietnam. CEP provides microfinance services throughout a network of 30 branches, spanning urban areas in HCMC as well as peri-urban and rural areas in surrounding provinces of the Mekong River Delta. CEP specifically aims to target low-income segments, with a minimum of 80% of its clients earning less than $2.10 per day.

CEP is working closely with the OPTIX team to digitize its loan origination process, introduce and implement flexible savings and term deposit product.

Institution Profile

Institution type: MFI

Year founded: 1991

Country: Vietnam

City: Ho Chi Minh

Client type: Low-Income

Website: http://www.cep.org.vn/home.html

optix pathways

Term Deposit Product Development: CEP launched their term deposit product in October 2017 after being granted the MFI status by the State Bank of Vietnam. With the support from BFA, CEP was able to refine the term product features such as term length, interest rate and withdrawal flexibility. Furthermore, CEP is building a Financial Advisory App to help introduce Term Deposit to current and new clients. The app is integrated with the Loan Origination App and has similar interface.

Loan Origination App: CEP upgraded its MIS system and scaled up the loan origination app to 34 branches in 2017. The app helps Loan Officers save time during the poverty assessment process and fasten the loan approval process. Loan officers who have used the Loan origination app for over one year saved up to 5-10 mins on average per one poverty assessment. Loan officers saved up to 50% of the loan approval process time in the office (eliminated data entry time).

Deploy Human-Centered Marketing: BFA worked with 17Triggers to deliver a human-centered design workshop introducing a new approach to marketing for CEP. CEP has taken and implemented new methodologies such as ideation and prototyping to all branches for both marketing ideation session and also for all training activities to new and current staff.

Building an Alternative Delivery Channel (ADC): After conducting research to assess the need for new delivery channels to their clients, CEP committed to developing a new pathway under the OPTIX project in December 2016 to build an alternative delivery channel. CEP has entered a partnership with Saigonbank to pilot automatic disbursement and repayment mechanisms for CEP clients who are workers and have accounts with Saigonbank. CEP is also planning to offer a payroll loan product with the option of automatic voluntary deposits in a savings account.