What We Do Technical Assistance for Financial Institutions
EduFinance Technical Assistance Facility (ETAF)
ETAF is Opportunity’s expert technical assistance (TA) team which works with socially-focussed financial institutions pursuing our goal of access to education for all. We support them to develop, launch and grow sustainable education lending portfolios. Our ETAF team is made up of microfinance experts based in Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America, who provide a variety of TA modules and expertise supporting financial institutions. EduFinance's two flagship education lending products are the school improvement loan and the school fee loan.
To address the lack of financial support for schools in low-resource environments, School Improvement Loans set the stage for rapid and sustainable improvement, ensuring more students gain access to a better education. For some school owners, it’s adding classrooms, textbooks, and desks. For others, it’s installing running water, dormitories, or gender-separated bathrooms—all are important provisions that keep students, especially girls, in school.
Our School Fee Loans are for parents earning an irregular income, helping them effectively spread out the costs of their children’s education. This helps prevent school drop-outs or missed classes during times of economic uncertainty when parents may struggle to pay for school fees, uniforms, materials and transportation.
Technical Assistance for Financial Institutions
Our team offers our financial institution partners TA in the following areas:
MARKET RESEARCH
We undertake a thorough analysis of the scale of the Education Finance market for each financial institution we partner with. We combine our global expertise in Education Finance with local insight by conducting hundreds of interviews with affordable non-state school owners and the parents of their students.
PRODUCT DESIGN
Based on the outcomes of our market research, we work with financial institutions to design financial products that meet the needs of the parents and school owners that use them.
STAFF TRAINING
We run training programs for branch managers, loan officers, credit and risk officers plus head office staff to ensure the successful launch, growth and management of the education lending portfolio. We take a modular approach to staff training so that content and sessions can be customized based on the needs of the individual financial institution.
PORTFOLIO ANALYSIS
Our Business Intelligence arm provides our partners with an analysis of their education finance portfolios as a monthly dashboard. Analyses are used to improve the management, risk mitigation and profitability of our partner financial institutions' portfolios.
AUTOMATED CREDIT ASSESSMENT
The EduFinance Algorithm improves lending decisions by using education finance borrower data to best predict default rates for School Fee Loans and School Improvement Loans. Our unique system models default predictions which can then be deployed by financial institution staff. The assessment tool is tablet-based so that loan officers can deliver immediate lending decisions in real-time.
SCHOOL LEADERSHIP ACADEMY
The EduFinance School Leadership Academy offers one-day workshops to affordable non-state school owners in our financial institution partners' target markets. The workshops provide guidance and overview what a school improvement loan is, why it could benefit their school, and how to apply for a loan. The workshops also break down barriers between financial institutions and schools, and build a pipeline of bankable schools for partners to follow-up with to offer financing options.
The three key elements of the School Leadership Academy include:
- Training: Building the capacity of school owners to run financially sustainable, quality schools and to access finance
- Financial Institution Panel Discussions: Creating awareness of and demand for partner financial institutions' education finance products and the application process
- Networking: Closing the knowledge gap and increasing understanding between schools and financial institutions
