Kiva conducts regular, ongoing monitoring of all Lending Partners, but only posts status updates here in response to relevant, major changes at the partner.

Status Update - 27 February 2020:
Kiva and CCT have agreed to end their partnership after nearly 11 years and almost $9 million in loans raised. This partner has repaid its outstanding balance to Kiva in full, and these funds have been distributed to lenders. We thank CCT for the years of collaboration and wish them success in their future endeavors.

Status Update - 26 July 2019:
Kiva recently re-assessed the level of risk associated with loans from this Lending Partner. During this process, our analysts gathered updated operational and financial information about the institution, spoke with key members of the staff and analyzed the Lending Partner’s loan products. As a result, CCT Credit Cooperative's risk rating is now listed as 2 stars instead of 3 stars.

Partner description:
Founded in 2004, the Center for Community Transformation Savings and Credit Cooperative (CCT), a partner of HOPE International, is a subsidiary of the The Center for Community Transformation Group of Ministries, a faith-based nonprofit development organization that is dedicated to transforming the lives and communities by providing services to the poor through a holistic development approach anchored in Christian principles. CCT reaches micro-entrepreneurs, service workers, itinerant vendors, orphans, indigenous peoples, landless agricultural workers, fisher folks and abandoned children in urban poor communities. In addition, the Center for Community Transformation operates training and development programs, clinics and disaster relief operations. CCT also runs a generic pharmaceutical distribution business called Tindahan Para Sa Bayan which allows micro entrepreneurs to access low cost medicine while funneling any extra income to social service projects.

CCT has a very strong social mission and specifically targets the poor. Average loan size for CCT borrowers is very small at $117 (although the maximum loan amount is about USD$2,000). While about 80% of its loans are for micro-businesses, CCT also funds educational loans (Study-Now-Pay-Now Plans) and housing loans. Recently, CCT also opened their services to the rank-and-file employees of partner companies for educational and housing purposes. As a cooperative, its clients are its co-owners and a large portion (70%) of the profits is returned to its client-members in the form of dividends and patronage refunds.

CCT has 19 centers that have transformed into Community Center model. A one-stop shop for all services to different poverty groups. Street people job training centers, micro enterprise services, water filtration, Visions of Hope schools, medical and dental services etc. CCT also has Savings and Credit Association groups, which are designed to serve the poorest of the poor for those members of the communities who cannot participate in the microfinance program. The purpose of the program is to introduce these people to the savings scheme to begin to learn financial discipline; how to save, bible study/character development, how to become good stewards of their resources and change their perspective towards handling finances. These services are provided at the new CCT Community Centers.

As of 2010, CCT had 133 branches throughout the Philippines and had over 130,000 microentrepreneur clients. Typical microentrepreneurs posted by CCT on Kiva include grocery store owners, fish sellers, trash collectors, food producers, transportation and agricultural businesses.

CCT Response to Typhoon’s in Philippines:
Of CCT’s 70,000 borrowers, 4,803 have been affected by the recent typhoons. Twenty-six members of the CCT staff also were affected. CCT quickly responded to those affected with distributions of food, basic medicines, clothes, blankets and foam mattresses. CCT continues to support its partners and borrowers affected by flooding.

Management:
The CCT management team has deep understanding of microfinance operations and the financing industry in the Philippines. Ruth Callanta, President and CEO, is a social development practitioner who used to sit on the Board of World Vision International, the global arm of an international relief and development organization, and one of the founders of Alliance of Philippine Partners in Enterprise Development (APPEND) an MFI network in the Philippines.

The Board of Directors of CCT is composed of respected businessmen and academicians. Its Chair is Professor Ronald Chua, a micro finance specialist of the Asian Institute of Management – the leading business school in Asia, and its Treasurer is Alice Gohoc, property developer.

CCT has over 380 full-time employees plus volunteer business mentors and community leaders that work with borrowers throughout 11 regions, 20 provinces, 49 cities throughout the Philippines.

Learn More:

• Visit our Website: http://www.cct.org.ph
• Join our lending team: Team CCT-Philippines
• Visit one of our blogs - http://cctcommunitycenters.blogspot.com and http://cctkaibiganvillage.blogspot.com

A note on CCT’s portfolio yield:
We care deeply about the cost that Kiva borrowers pay for their loans, which is why fair pricing is a core part of our initial due diligence process for Lending Partners. With Kiva's 0% capital, many of our Lending Partners are also able to add additional value to their loans by reducing interest rates, offering non-financial services or creating new loan products.

For partners with reported portfolio yields or average APRs higher than 50%, Kiva takes steps to check that the high rates are justified by the impact of the loans. Kiva also verifies that the partner is not generating unreasonable profits or paying inflated salaries, and that the partner’s elevated operating costs are justified by its operating environment and/or the design of its loan products.

We seek to support loans that don’t impose an unjustifiable cost burden on hard-working borrowers. We nevertheless recognize that in order to reach vulnerable and excluded people with high-impact products and services, some of our partners incur high costs that necessitate charging higher-than-average costs to borrowers in order to allow for sustainability and scale. 

Factors that drive up the costs that this partner organization charges its borrowers include:

• They provide very small loans. This leads to higher operating costs, since providing each individual loan presents a minimum per-unit cost.
• They provide very short term loans, which leads to higher operating costs, since each short-term loan generates a smaller amount of revenue than a longer-term loan.
• They provide more than just cash to many of their borrowers, including costly wraparound services such as healthcare, financial or business training, agricultural extension services, insurance or access to education.
• They operate in a region known to be at risk of natural disaster, which increases the cost of doing business.