Growing Women-Led Businesses, One Dream at a Time
Access to Finance in Viet Nam is Helping Women-led Businesses Succeed While Growing Local Markets
In 2014, Tu Anh - a Hanoi resident who worked for many years in a Singaporean company branch - spent her savings to buy the food import-export and distribution company, New Horizon.
Currently serving as the Director of the company, Tu Anh began her entrepreneurial journey with the belief that, “why don't I try to use the effort and time that I spend working for another company on my own business so I can independently arrange time for my children?”
At New Horizon, her interactions with corporate clients made her realize that businesses have a great demand for gifts used in sales campaigns as well as for customers, partners, and employees on anniversaries. Thus, she began to explore the market and developed a new business segment: corporate gifts.
Video by Huy Nguyen, Oanh Le/IFC
Video by Huy Nguyen, Oanh Le/IFC
Viet Nam is one of the fastest growing economies in the world, remaining open and recovering strongly from COVID-19’s negative economic impacts. However, much of Viet Nam’s rapidly growing credit is allocated to large firms and 66 percent of the total financing need of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in the country remains unmet.
Women owned/led SMEs (WSMEs) are particularly affected; they make up 21% of formal business in Viet Nam yet are severely credit constrained, with an almost US$ 4.9 billion financing gap. Moreover, only 37% of WSMEs have access to bank business loans, compared to 47% of male-led firms, which access such loans in larger amounts. Some of the financial barriers faced by SMEs include inadequate financial records, lack of collateral, perceived business risks, and lack of tailored financial products
A major difficulty Tu Anh faced was working capital: she had to ensure cash flow for the company's monthly expenses. “This is something that I never dealt with when I was working as an employee,” Tu Anh explained. "Before, I never thought [about]… incoming and outgoing cashflows to cover monthly expenses and to import goods at the same time." A crucial factor in Tu Anh’s credit needs is her inability to self-fund working capital expenses that will enable her to deliver new orders to her clients. Since she is only paid after delivery, her firm faces a cash-flow mismatch that hinders her from effectively scaling her business. “About 2-3 years ago, I reached out to bigger businesses and started bidding on larger orders. Sometimes, orders overlapped, and there were periods when you just simply didn’t have enough money to receive more orders,” Tu Anh explained.
Nguyen Thi Linh, the Chief Finance Officer for Hoang Anh Ltd., a family business she has been running with her sister since 2016, is well acquainted with the challenges faced by WSMEs. Based in Hanoi, her company produces and supplies wooden packaging products for overseas buyers. Her business has grown over the years, exporting containers to Japan, Korea, Malaysia, and various parts of Asia.
Recently, Nguyen Thi Linh learned that her company is required to move its factory from its current area by 2030 to mitigate industrial pollution and allow for the building of new roads to support urbanization in the northeastern part of Hanoi. She needs financing of nearly 10 billion Vietnamese Dong (equivalent to $400,000) for constructing a new factory in a different location.
She turned to the Southeast Asia Commercial Joint Stock Bank (SeABank), whose products have benefitted her in the past as well. “The highest credit line I have ever used up was nearly 9 billion Vietnamese Dong for working capital,” she recalls.
Tu Anh made a similar decision. “SeABank had very good policies for women-owned businesses, offering better interest rates than the average market rate. Loan procedures were very quick, enabling us to work on multiple large orders thanks to timely financing.” Tu Anh’s company was granted a credit limit of 2 billion Vietnamese Dong (equivalent to $90,000), which provided her with working capital to take multiple orders continuously.
Tran Duc, SeABank’s Deputy Director of the SME Department, described their engagement with the WSME segment, noting that “five years ago, we were one of the first banks to target female customers… We assess customers using their income, transaction history, or credit history and then apply different policies for different groups, such as offering lower loan interest rates or fee incentives. Collateral is only one of many factors considered and there are tailor-made products available”. This approach alleviates some of the constraints WSMEs face in securing finance.
As an implementing partner of the Women Entrepreneurs’ Finance Initiative (We-Fi), which supports women entrepreneurs globally, the IFC We-Fi Program provided SeABank with the opportunity to benefit from a performance-based incentive (PBI) of up to $140,000 alongside a $170 million loan package to incentivize the bank to scale its WSME portfolio through IFC’s Banking on Women business. Of this, at least $20 million out of the total investment was earmarked for on-lending to WSMEs. The investment was complemented by IFC advisory services focusing on building the lender’s capacity to design, roll-out, and manage a portfolio of loans for WSMEs. This included developing the value propositions for WSMEs and helping SeABank design financial and non-financial products for WSMEs.
“We found that female-owned businesses are highly ingenious. They possess good negotiation skills to get deal closed, not to mention their strengths in business operations, market development as well as outreach to new partners. We see those as advantages and that’s why our market is constantly expanding, which is shown by growth figures.”
Tran Duc, SeABank's Deputy Director of the SME Department
Tu Anh benefitted from these advisory services. She noted that, “SeABank also organizes several training sessions for female entrepreneurs like myself; the training program on sales strategies is quite suitable and useful for me. These trainings also help us meet other businesses that are most likely potential customers.”
In late 2023, SeABank officially launched SeAPower, which offers specialized financial and non-financial benefits to female entrepreneurs, building their capacity and developing the women's market. Services include interactive forums, workshops and training, service stations for WSMEs at branches, business networking opportunities, promotion programs with prestige brands, communication and branding support. “This is a playground, where we help the community of female entrepreneurs, both existing and potential customers of SeABank, to engage in networking as well as to gain the opportunities to learn,” Tran Duc remarked. SeABank intends to further promote the SeAPower club for WSMEs in the coming years. Moreover, with support from IFC, SeABank designed and launched a new cashflow based lending product in June 2024, specifically targeting small-scale businesses and female-owned businesses. Although it has just been deployed, the product uptake has been strong. Going forward, SeABank will promote the product across all its branches.
Tu Anh’s business has come a long way. “In 2014, when I took over the company, we had 40 food distribution agents and now this number is 60 agents spreading throughout North and Central Viet Nam. At the same time, the corporate gift segment has been growing robustly,” she notes, proudly. Currently, she intends to focus on companies in industrial zones as they employ several workers for whom they have very large gift orders. “In the medium term, in addition to supplying corporate gifts like now, I also plan to produce my company's own household brand, providing popular, good quality products at an affordable price for consumers,” she adds.
Nguyen Thi Linh also plans to expand her business, “it gives me good income to raise my family and creates jobs for others. By 2030, my target is to expand into a new product line to enter [new markets] - the European market, for example.” It’s an exciting time for the two businesswomen, and IFC We-Fi is glad to support their entrepreneurial journey by working with SeABank.
To meet our 2030 targets, we will build a new factory that meets European standards. In general, I have many dreams, but I take them step-by-step and stay realistic. Although this job is challenging, it also creates a lot of value for myself and my family. And it's the profession choosing you, not you choosing it.
- Nguyen Thi Linh -
Video by Huy Nguyen, Oanh Le/IFC
Video by Huy Nguyen, Oanh Le/IFC
About We-Fi
We-Fi invests in programs that address barriers faced by women entrepreneurs, such as access to finance, markets, technology, and mentoring, while improving policy and regulatory frameworks. As a We-Fi Implementing Partner, IFC helps expand financial services and market access for women-owned businesses and enhances their capacity to grow. To learn more, visit https://www.ifc.org/en/what-we-do/sector-expertise/blended-finance/sme-finance-and-gender#wefi and www.we-fi.org.
Published in March 2025
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