Visa expands funding programme for women entrepreneurs in Vietnam
Visa, the world’s leader in digital payments, on March 28 announced the expansion of the She’s Next Grant Programme in Vietnam to support women entrepreneurs in capital mobilisation, business governance and development.
Accordingly, the programme will continue to receive applications from March 28 to the end of April 29, 2022. Eligible entrants must be Vietnamese citizens who acquire at least 51% women-owned enterprises that have operated for at least one year.
Dang Tuyet Dung, Director of Visa Vietnam, said that the Visa She’s Next Grant Programme, in partnership with IFundWomen, will provide three winning Vietnamese businesses with grants of US$10,000, along with a one-year IFundWomen Coaching membership and chances to join IFundWomen’s chain of conferences and entrepreneurs’ connection events.
She said that Visa estimates that women-owned enterprises are in need of about US$1.19 billion of capital without having found funding sources. The Visa She’s Next Grant Programme will strive to narrow down the gap by providing the capital to help female entrepreneurs realise their business goals.
The programme will be built based on Visa's commitments to improve the digitalisation capacity for more than 50 million small-sized businesses across the globe.
Alongside, Visa will also implement a number of other useful programmes that encourage consumers to support local firms and accompany small and medium-sized enterprises in the digital transformation process.
Nguyen Thi Tuyet Minh, chairwoman of Vietnam Women Entrepreneurs Council (VWEC) said that not only female enterprises but the whole business community highly value Visa’s support in promoting business growth.
She said that in Vietnam, women have made 40% of total national assets, while female labourers account for 48.4% of the country’s workforce. Vietnam has led Southeast Asian countries in the increase of the number of women-led enterprises.
However, 37% of small and medium-sized enterprises have got sufficient conditions and opportunities to access banks’ loans over the past two years. The ratio is lower compared to 47% of men-led firms.
In this context, the She’s Next Grant Programme is expected to become a motivation for women entrepreneurs and women-led firms to work harder and develop innovative ideas.
