Your impact in
Indonesia

Microfinance Report, Indonesia – October 2019 (data to June 2019)

Opportunity's partners in Indonesia are currently reaching 1,119,662 families with small loans and financial services. With an average of five in each family, your giving is helping more than 5.5 million people break free from the cycle of poverty. 

In the past six months your support has given 101,049 more entrepreneurs the opportunity to turn their business ideas into reality. With small loans to grow small businesses, alongside other community development services, your giving is transforming lives for generations to come.

HIGHLIGHTS

In the first half of 2019, Opportunity’s partners in Indonesia have seen strong growth across the board. Komida and TLM in particular continue to grow quickly, with TLM, a partner operating in extremely isolated areas, recently hitting the milestone of 100,000 clients.

Our Indonesian partners are expanding their services into more remote areas, including Sulawesi, Kalimantan and Sumatra. By expanding their geographical spread, our partners are ensuring that they are able to reach families in remote areas who generally have less access to financial services than those in more populated regions.

All partners are piloting the use of digital technology to make financial services more accessible. Paperless methods of data collection will enable our partners to operate more efficiently and safely in rural areas and give clients more freedom with their transactions.

We continue to explore the best methods of maximising the value of our microfinance platform through non-financial initiatives. More information on these programs can be found in our education and health reports.

LESSONS

With the rapid growth of our Indonesian partners comes the challenge of insufficient staffing; particularly in middle management. To combat this, Opportunity is working with our partners to develop online resources that will help prepare staff for promotions into middle management roles. The online training focuses on upskilling existing staff and internally promoting into positions of leadership, allowing new staff to be recruited into junior roles.

INDONESIA MICROFINANCE PARTNER SUMMARY 

Microfinance Report, Indonesia – March 2019 (data to December 2018)

Thanks to your support Opportunity's program partners in Indonesia are now helping 1,018,613 families to break the poverty cycle.

With an average of five in each family, your giving is transforming the lives of over 5.1 million people.

In the past six months your support has given 122,029 more entrepreneurs the opportunity to turn their business ideas into reality. As their businesses grow, parents are supporting their children with better food, shelter and education.

OPPORTUNITY'S PARTNERS IN INDONESIA

Our partners in Indonesia are continuing to grow. Operational sustainability and portfolio at risk are at appropriate levels.

REACHING OVER 1 MILLION FAMILIES

In December 2018, Opportunity's microfinance partners in Indonesia reached over 1 million active clients for the first time. This milestone is a result of our expansion strategy to reach more underserved families in more regions across Indonesia, where the need for financial inclusion is significant. 

Your support has enabled our outreach to grow both through new partnerships, but also through building the capacity of our existing partners. For example, our long-term partner TLM has more than doubled their active clients from 30,018 in December 2012 to 77,136 in December 2018. There are many factors that have enabled this growth in outreach but of particular note are smarter, more efficient branch processes leading to a dramatic reduction in Portfolio at Risk. Today TLM's current PAR is almost negligible - just 0.2% compared to 12.2% in December 2012. 

Indonesia Partner Performance, December 2018

View a table showing partner data for families reached, loans outstanding, operational sustainability and portfolio at risk:

Meet Heni

Each day Heni carefully tends to her garden where she grows an assortment of fruits, vegetables and her son Yardi’s favourite, dragon fruit. It’s a job that she takes great pride in. 

For many families living on Rote Island, Indonesia, farming and fishing are their main forms of employment. The island has an abundance of land and natural resources, but many families are still trapped in poverty, struggling to make ends meet. 

But a humble community garden is helping to change that.  

For the past year, Heni has been working at a community garden that she part owns, funded by Opportunity International Australia’s Indonesian microfinance partner, TLM. 

Families learn best farming practices and sell the fruits of their labour at the local market. The community garden provides families with not only a source of income, but fresh and nutritious food. 

Dragon fruit is the most popular produce and is frequently sold far beyond Rote Island to markets across Indonesia. With the additional income from her garden, Heni hopes to send her son to school. She knows education is the key to moving out of poverty and creating a better life. 

Meet Asria

Each day Asria rises in the early hours of the morning to prepare tempeh. She boils, peels and dries soybeans before mixing them with yeast. It’s a valuable skill she learnt from her older sister. 

Before Asria started her tempeh business, she worked in the paddy fields as a rice grinder – tough, physical work. Her earnings weren’t always enough to meet the needs of her four children. 

With a small loan through Opportunity’s partner TLM, Asria started her business making and selling tempeh – and doubled her income. In her village on Rote Island, Indonesia, tempeh is a daily staple and always in high demand. 

Asria’s day begins at 3.30am. She prepares tempeh before waking her children for school. After selling her products at the markets, Asria returns home to cook for her family and continues making tempeh until retiring to bed at 10pm. 

For Asria, the long days are worth it. When asked why she works so hard, Asria replied: “To fufill the daily needs, to pay for my children’s education. It is important for the children; they must go to school.”

Neither Asria nor her husband completed their education. Asria was needed at home to help her parents and was unable to continue on to high school. Thanks to her successful business, Asria hopes her children will have access to the opportunities she missed out on. 

MEET YUSTINA

Newlyweds Yustina and her husband Densanos are excited about the opportunities of life ahead of them. Now doting parents to their month-old daughter, Cleopatra, securing reliable income to meet her needs has taken on new importance. 

The family live in a tiny rural village called Tetuff, on West Timor island in remote eastern Indonesia. For now they share a home with Yustina’s parents, with dreams of building their own house on the land next door.

Determined to give Cleopatra the best opportunities in life, Yustina recently opened a small kiosk outside their home. Thanks to your support she could use a small loan to invest in stock to get started, selling everyday items families in her neighbourhood might need like rice, coffee and lollies.

She’s already showing her natural business savvy, stocking different products to competing kiosks.

Your hand up has given the young family a source of daily income, and hope for their future. Each day Yustina earns a small amount from the sales in her kiosk. She’s learning to manage this money, putting aside what’s needed for her loan repayment, savings towards Cleopatra’s education and some for their daily needs.

Her greatest hope is that Cleopatra may live a life free from poverty by one day finishing school and becoming a teacher.

Portfolio at risk is a stringent measure of a microfinance institution’s loan portfolio quality. The portfolio at risk calculates the total value of outstanding loan balances for loans, for every payment that is overdue by more than 30 days.

Operational sustainability is the ability of an organisation to cover the costs of its lending program with the revenue earned from its lending program.