Student Tuition Fee Loan Launched...

These children want to go to school

UOB has been developing several loan products related to education. They are called EduFinance all together.

In 2012, we introduced Christian private school development and vocational school tuition fee loan. Also we were developing tuition fee loan for secondary students to be provided for loyal group clients. Finally, this product has been launched. It is still a pilot launch with only seven groups in three EBUs because we are still learning about issues we may face in the implementation process.

Secondary Student Loan or SSL has been developed in cooperation with Merry Year International in S. Korea. It is a Christian international development foundation. MYI has sent us an intern, Sungeun Choi, who has been working actively to develop this product. This product has been designed to help parents who cannot afford to make payment for the tuition fee upfront.  They are allowed to make payment in installments. Because of this affordability challenge for lump sum money, many teenagers, particularly girls, stay home doing house choirs or helping their parents in farming or running a micro business. It is our desire to see our SSL help increase their school attendance rate.

It is being offered to existing group clients who have good payment records. It is a reward program for loyal clients with satisfactory payment records because its interest rate is lower than business loans, it does not require any processing fee and it is waived from micro insurance requirement.

Once we refine the process, it will be scaled up to all EBUs for all group clients in April when the next school term begins. We may also consider expanding the program to primary school students unless we face different challenges. May this program prove to be helpful to the parents and students. - Jeffrey