TYM is one of 10 financial institutions in the world honored in the framework of the European Microfinance Awards 2022 with the theme “Financial Inclusion for Women” (EMA 2022).

Recently, TYM was honored to be one of ten financial institutions in the world recognized in the framework of the EMA 2022 Awards for its outstanding efforts and results in promoting the development of women through these awards. TYM is the only representative of Southeast Asia in this top 10.

Enhancing economic power, role and status of women

TYM was established by the Vietnam Women’s Union in 1992 with the mission of improving the quality of life of low-income individuals and households, especially giving priority to poor and disadvantaged women through financial and non-financial services. TYM currently serves more than 180,000 customers in 13 provinces/cities, of which 100% are women. The majority of TYM members are low-income, near-poor, poor and vulnerable women. These women are vulnerable to poverty and gender inequality due to limited access to productive resources such as formal credit and other financial services for business development, lack of knowledge and business skills, lack of savings habits and various barriers to accessing educational, social, health and cultural services for sustainable development.

During 30 years of accompanying women’s development, TYM has determined that supporting members to develop in a sustainable way requires comprehensive, appropriate, safe and responsible financial solutions. To help women become economic, TYM’s loans are designed in a variety of ways to suit their conditions. From a credit product in 1992, up to now, TYM has launched 9 products with diverse conditions and characteristics, suitable for each target customer group. TYM’s loans do not require collateral, are repaid in small installments, easily accessible with high credit quality based on the service model at the member’s place of residence and lending based on strict credit discipline. TYM also offers many savings programs to help women build the habit of wealth accumulation and financial management through very small deposits of only 5,000 VND/time, and organizes training programs, financial education makes it easy for women to turn these small amounts of money into valuable savings. Besides, TYM combines economic tools with completely free social support to improve the quality of life and fully promote the role of women.

Over the past three decades, TYM has supported more than 385 thousand women to access and benefit from its services; many of them have risen out of poverty, master their lives, even become micro-entrepreneurs and have been honored in national and international awards. TYM also contributes to changing the awareness and capacity of women, contributing to the promotion of gender equality. Through TYM’s support, women become more knowledgeable, more confident, thereby participating more actively and importantly in family activities. In 2021 alone, 1,227 female members of TYM will be elected to the People’s Councils of districts and communes.

Promoting gender equality in the workplace

In addition to providing responsible microfinance services, contributing to the improvement of women’s lives and roles, TYM also focuses on promoting gender equality in the workplace. Through specific policies, TYM creates opportunities and supports the equitable development of female staff within the organization itself. With the characteristics of microfinance activities, TYM staff often travel down to the field to perform transactions and serve members/customers. Therefore, female staff may face certain difficulties compared to male staff in the process of performing their jobs as well as striving to develop and advance in their careers.

In order to facilitate and support the development of female staff, TYM applies a process of recognition and evaluation of capacity fairly among staff in all activities from recruitment, training, to staff development. TYM has human resource policies to protect employees and create a supportive working environment in accordance with the current labor code. Personnel policies and working conditions are clearly communicated to all staff when they join TYM. Officers also receive job-specific training and skill development related to job performance. Especially for female staff, TYM has separate priority policies for female staff during pregnancy and child rearing period, creating favorable conditions for staff to balance and fulfill their roles in society and family as well like promoting motherhood.

TYM is proud to maintain its staff’s long-term commitment to the organization, with the average working time of TYM officers being about 10 years and the turnover rate of only 2.85% (in 2021). Of the nearly 600 staff, more than 60% of managers and 80% of grassroots staff of TYM are female. The success of TYM today recognizes a great contribution from the of these women.

By being selected as one of 10 financial institutions in the world honored in the framework of the European Microfinance Awards 2022 with the theme “Financial Inclusion for Women” (EMA 2022), TYM can be proud to affirm that TYM has been on the right track on the way to support Vietnamese women and on the way to implementing the National Financial Inclusion Strategy. This award is also a motivation to help TYM constantly strive and create for the development of Vietnamese women.

The EMA is a prestigious annual award organized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Luxembourg, the European Microfinance Network (e-MFP) and the Luxembourg Comprehensive Financial Network (InFiNe.Iu), in collaboration with the European Investment Bank (EIB). The EMA was initiated by the Luxembourg Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2005, to celebrate, share and replicate best practices in the financial industry, especially financial inclusion. In 2022, the program focused on the theme “Financial inclusion for women” and attracted the participation of 88 organizations from 47 countries around the world.