Home Credit (HC), one of the leading consumer finance companies in the Philippines, has recently joined other fintech companies in the country that have heeded the call of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) to push for financial inclusion for every Filipino through its Digital Payments Transformation Roadmap.
“Home Credit Philippines remains committed to supporting the government’s equitable post-pandemic recovery in the Philippines through our consumer finance services and solutions,” said David Minol, CEO of Home Credit Philippines. “We believe our financial inclusion programs and financial literacy initiatives can help build on the bigger vision of empowering more Filipinos.”
In his statement, Minol reported that the company now has an 8 million strong customer base since they started operating in the country almost nine years ago. The company has since provided more than P18 million worth of loans to unbanked and underserved Filipinos, most of which were women.
He added that more than 70 percent of these loan applications were processed via Home Credit’s digital channels. Minol, however, did not divulge the total number of loans granted to customers.
Of the total loans, Home Credit said that 50 percent of loans or credit were availed of at the POS or point sales machines of their partners.
Interestingly, 52 percent of their customers were women and 60 percent of the cash loans were availed of by women. In addition, 27 percent of cash loans were availed of by women under 29 years of age. Home Credit also turned out to be one of the borrowers’ engagements with a lending institution.
For the January to June period of this year alone, the company said that they have already served almost half a million new customers, more than half of which were women. Over a quarter of these customers are also in the younger age brackets.
Broadening access to responsible finance, championing financial literacy
In line with the Philippine government’s strategy to widen financial inclusion to more Filipinos, Minol said that Home Credit Philippines continues to support the BSP’s initiative. The company believes that the key to accelerating financial inclusion among Filipinos is by making financial services easily accessible to more people, especially for the unbanked and the underserved.
Some of the company’s thrusts for 2022 include broadening access to responsible finance, championing financial literacy and empowerment, as well as promoting innovation and digital inclusion.
In 2021, Home Credit signed a ground-breaking ESG-linked loan with Deutsche Bank to help reinforce the company’s digitalization efforts. Sixty percent of the loans were availed of by customers through digital channels and were meant to enable more equitable loan rates and terms to customers, regardless of their economic or social background.
This year, the consumer finance firm has also inked a pioneering loan facility with Citi that is aimed at providing access to digital financial services to women. P120 million out of the P420 million of this loan facility were dedicated to women who wish to purchase basic digital devices such as smartphones and tablets.
The company has also launched its flagship financial literacy in June this year and will soon be launching its “Wais Sa Home” financial literacy microsite featuring financial literacy quizzes and other resources. Its aim is to expand financial literacy among the youth throughout the country.
In July 2022, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas launched the National Strategy for Financial Inclusion (NSFI) 2022-2028, the country’s first financial inclusion blueprint to transform the country into a more inclusive society with a more empowered citizenry in the next six years.
The BSP’s 2020 financial inclusion initiative report revealed that in 2019, only 29 percent of adult Filipinos own bank accounts and only 19 percent had formal credit.