HA NOI — Việt Nam Prosperity Joint Stock Commercial Bank (VPBank) was one of five credit institutions in the world awarded the New Programme Award for women in 2018.

The Women’s Market Champion Awards given by the Global Banking Alliance for Women (GBA) aimed to recognise outstanding GBA member institutions that are working to better serve women by providing them with holistic solutions that meet their needs. 

“The awarded institutions are true champions of women, working to unleash the economic potential of the female economy,” GBA Chief Executive Inez Murray said. “Their engagement with the GBA network is essential to the work we are doing to economically empower women worldwide and contributes to the Women’s Market success of the entire membership.”

The award shows the international community recognises VPBank’s efforts to empower women entrepreneurs this year. According to a survey by the International Finance Corporation (IFC), Việt Nam has around 600,000 small- and medium-sized enterprises, 21 per cent of which are women-led firms.

More than half of the women-led businesses operate on a very small scale and face difficulties in accessing financing.

In this context, VPBank has been a pioneer in providing overall solutions to help women-led companies grow.  

VPBank started the pilot implementation of a banking segment for women-led firms in 2017. More than 1,400 women-led enterprises participated in non-financial activities organised by the bank.

Women-led firms account for 18 per cent of the total number of the bank’s SME customers and 26 per cent of its total outstanding loans.

“We are proud of receiving the New Programme Award,” said Fung Kai Jin, director of the SMEs Customer Department at VPBank. “The prize will provide momentum for us to continue to serving women-led firms better. VPBank is committed to bringing equality to women in accessing financial services.”

He said the award would also improve awareness that banking solutions could help women entrepreneurs join economic activities more successfully. — VNS