Habitat Cambodia’s Housing Finance Program

An Overview

Habitat Cambodia’s Housing Finance Program focuses on four types of loan activities, and coordinates with each homeowner to determine which is best suited to their situation. Retail loans are provided to successful applicants in both Phnom Penh and Siem Reap to either build or improve their home, or provide the ability for the family to access improved water and sanitation, or connect to available electricity. Families are offered a suitable loan amount which fits their capacity to make regular repayments. Another facet of the financing program is Institutional Lending. In Battambang Province, Habitat Cambodia has provided a total of $50,000 to our partner micro finance institution, Cambodia Business Integration for Rural Development (CBIRD) which provides loans to target families currently living on a social land concession area and enables them to finance house construction and home improvement. HFHC works in partnership with Vision Fund Cambodia in Siem Reap province to promote lending for construction of sanitation projects. We provide a small package of incentives to VFC’s clients who pay back their loan on time. As of December 2013 Habitat Cambodia has served 418 clients in two districts. The fourth and largest aspect of this program is Micro Build. This program is part of Habitat for Humanity International’s work with capital loans funding. Habitat Cambodia, in collaboration with our regional office, assists established micro finance institutions (MFI’s) in developing or re-defining their products to cater to low-income families’ housing needs., and providing capacity building training to their credit officers and their clients on construction technical assistance and financial education for home improvement. To date, HFHC has worked in partnership with two of Cambodia’s largest MFIs, Thaneak Phum (Cambodia) Ltd., and Hattha Kaksekar Ltd. (HKL). The Micro Build Project recently reached a $2 million loan agreement with HKL.