IRC's Center for Economic Opportunity

Ceo seeks to responsibly deploy capital to underserved, credit-thin refugee and immigrant communities through trusted community partners that also offer credit education and related asset-building services. In fiscal year 2022, ceo realized significant growth in every facet of our operation - including across all products and lines of business.in fy2022, we reached more refugees and immigrants through more partners than in any prior year since inception. From october 2021 september 2022, ceo closed over 1,400 loans totaling more than $7mm financed and representing a 272% year-over-year growth. 94% of borrowers were low-income based on hud amfi and 75% had "bad or no" fico score at the time of application. 85% of dollars financed went to refugee borrowers, with over 50% of borrowers in the u.s. less than two years. Borrowers arrived from over 68 unique countries of origin. Despite making loans to low-income borrowers classified as 'deep subprime' by the credit system, ceo has maintained a 97.5% historical repayment rate since inception.the increases in loan volume were a result of successes in three key areas a) sustaining & growing partnerships b) key technology enhancements that removed prior bottlenecks and c) the launch of an emergency response programming to support the influx of afghan evacuees under operation: allies welcome.a) sustained, organic growth through partnership model: by the end of fy22, ceo's loans were accessible through 28 community access points across 16 states. All of ceo's community partners from prior to fy2022 have maintained their engagement with ceo while we've continued to on-board new partners. Most partners specialize in serving refugees and immigrants and all provide credit education and related Economic development services in tandem with ceo's loans and offer support to clients that may face turbulence in repayment.b) efficiency & capacity improvement through technology investments: in fy2022, ceo went live with a new lending platform and related technology that has brought significant benefits to our borrowers, partners and our own admin and operations. Investments in customer relationship management software and online fin-tech integrations created significant efficiencies and were instrumental in allowing the organization to handle over 200% the volume vs the prior year.c) emergency response for afghan evacuees: in response to the historic evacuation of over 85,000 afghans under operation allies welcome, ceo designed and led an initiative to launch the support for afghan financial empowerment (safe) program in partnership with its parent, the irc. Through safe, afghan evacuees accessed online credit education and remote 1:1 meetings with trained afghan financial coaches. Ceo also established the safe fund - a pool of dollars exclusively used for issuing 0% apr auto, personal and credit-building loans to afghan evacuees. By july 0f 2022, ceo had raised and deployed over $4mm of loans at 0% apr to help newly arrived afghan evacuees more quickly establish a stable financial foothold in the u.s. While 0% capital is no longer available, the safe program continues as a collaboration between irc and ceo and represents a new model for linking newcomers to credit education and loans even in the absence of physical local partner presence.