Photo credit: Savi Moni - Customer Feedback by Loan Partners has been very supportive to date, as per the above testimonial from Southern Cross Insurance’s Payroll Department.
Access to affordable credit is highly valued but not readily available in Papua New Guinea. In an extremely competitive employment marketplace, businesses are increasingly assisting employees to access credit as a means to both attract and retain their top talent.
Even in the current economic downturn, there is still a ‘war on talent’ when it comes to PNG’s ‘best and brightest’. This is only set to intensify in 2022 with the Government having effectively given the ‘green light’ to both the PNG LNG expansion (i.e., P’nyang) and the reopening of the Porgera gold mine. Furthermore, despite the slow progression of the much anticipated Wafi-Golpu gold mining project, it will only be a matter of time before it too will require the skillsets of thousands of new employees.
A recent Salary Finance survey of US workers found that access to affordable credit is one of the most desired benefits not currently being offered by employers. Human Resource professionals agree, that in combination with competitive salaries, providing staff with access to affordable credit is another way to reduce the likelihood of valued employees ‘jumping ship’. It also helps position a business as an ‘employer of choice’ when it comes to recruitment.
Significantly, a key finding from PwC's 2021 Employee Financial Wellness Survey, found that, 72 percent of workers who reported facing increased financial setbacks during the pandemic said they would be more attracted to another company that cared more about financial well-being than their current employer.
Savi Moni, an online personal loan service designed specifically for PNG’s corporate sector was launched in 2020. Founder and Director Nick Keane has heard firsthand from several business leaders the concerns they have of losing key staff, as well as the administrative and cost burdens of managing employee credit programs in-house.
Having lived and worked in PNG for over 25 years, Keane understands the stress and hardship that a lack of access to affordable credit results in – especially when people resort to lending from unethical pay day street lenders (i.e., ‘loan sharks’).
“I’ve seen far too many people – even highly-educated people in good jobs – end up in a cycle of debt that they can’t escape. Typically, these people find themselves with a mix of formal and informal (street lender) loans on high interest rates that they cannot afford. It is a really sad and really desperate situation for a lot of hard working and honest people.”
Keane started Savi Moni so that he could help the corporate sector help its employees. “As someone with other business interests in PNG and someone who has managed large PNG workforces, I knew that internally managed employee credit programs are really time consuming, prone to creating workplace issues and not a good use of company capital. As such, we designed our lending product to be simple and streamlined so that there would be an absolutely minimal administrative burden for businesses. We also wanted to introduce the concept of ‘responsible lending’ to the market – that is, by carrying out in-depth assessments to ensure we don’t over lend to our customers. We want them to be able to comfortably manage their repayments, whilst having enough money for life’s essentials left in each pay packet.”
Central to the Savi Moni product is the recognition that employee financial wellness is not a ‘warm and fuzzy’ or ‘feel good’ employee program. Financial wellness programs are now a ‘need-to-have’ employee benefit. As such, Savi Moni provides not only a range of free financial literacy tools, tips, resources and courses on its website, but it has partnered with Australian Business Volunteers (ABV) to deliver a PNG bespoke ‘Family Money Management’ two-day course for its loan partner companies. The training is delivered at cost.
Solar Solutions, an early adopter of Savi Moni’s loan offering delivered ABV’s Family Money Management course to its Port Moresby staff. Savi Moni’s Pukari Peni, who attended the training session with them reported that “The feedback was great. All of the staff that participated said they greatly benefited from the training.”
Port Moresby based Avenell Engineering Systems (AES), has been impressed with the flexibility of setting their own loan parameters. Knowing full well, the negative affects to their business of staff suffering from high levels of financial stress, AES wanted to implement their own lending rules. “Savi Moni really do have a ‘responsible lender approach’, with tight lending guidelines, yet we wanted to ensure even tighter rules for our staff. We set our own Debt to Income (DTI) Ratio and Savi Moni were able to implement this without a hassle.” AESHR Manager, Maria Jesusa Garcia.
Savi Moni is a 100 percent online personal lending service with agents on the ground to assist if needed. It is delivered through a convenient and transparent digital platform that a business’ approved HR and Payroll staff log in to. In order for employees to benefit from a Savi Moni personal loan the employing business must first sign up as a Loan Partner, there is no risk for Loan Partners just benefits. Minimal time and effort are required from Loan Partner businesses and their employees to ensure a fast and simple employee credit program.
Article courtesy of Savi Moni
