Timed to co­in­cide with the start of the long va­ca­tion for pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary school chil­dren at the end of next week, WiLoan, the small loans di­vi­sion of the re­gion­al dig­i­tal pay­ments plat­form, Wi­Pay, has em­barked on a dri­ve to de­liv­er lend­ing so­lu­tions to em­ploy­ees.

Last week, WiLoan em­ploy­ees vis­it­ed Plipde­co, which fol­lowed ac­ti­va­tions with em­ploy­ees of the Na­tion­al Flour Mills (NFM), Port Au­thor­i­ty, An­gos­tu­ra, and oth­ers, made pos­si­ble through col­lab­o­ra­tion with union part­ners NATUC and SWW­TU.

WiLoan of­fi­cials said the com­pa­ny is mak­ing avail­able on-the-spot, pre-ap­proved loans that come with some fi­nan­cial ed­u­ca­tion. Em­ploy­ees at­tend­ing the ses­sions are giv­en short, prac­ti­cal guid­ance on bor­row­ing wise­ly—cov­er­ing key fun­da­men­tals such as when and why to bor­row, how to man­age debt, and how to un­der­stand in­ter­est and re­pay­ment terms, the com­pa­ny said.

WiLoan Ser­vices Ltd CEO Mr. Ly­ron Mar­low said, “Our road­show ini­tia­tive is de­signed to bring our ser­vices di­rect­ly to the work­place, mak­ing it eas­i­er for em­ploy­ees to learn about fi­nan­cial well­ness and ac­cess funds when they need it most. We’ve part­nered with sev­er­al trade unions and em­ploy­ers to fa­cil­i­tate seam­less, on-the-ground ac­ti­va­tions.”

He added, “WiLoan is com­mit­ted to be­ing a leader in em­ploy­ee-based lend­ing and fi­nan­cial em­pow­er­ment across the Caribbean. In the com­ing months, we plan to Ex­pand our Em­ploy­er “Cred­it Where You Work” Road­show to more in­dus­tries and sec­tors to reach un­der­served em­ploy­ee groups and there by de­liv­er on our tag line of “Good Cred­it is Life.”

WiLoan was of­fi­cial­ly launched on De­cem­ber 1, 2020, as a pi­lot project that part­nered Wi­Pay and the Na­tion­al Trade Union Cen­tre (NATUC), one of T&T’s um­brel­la trade union bod­ies.

The com­pa­ny of­fers salaried work­ers in T&T quick, con­ve­nient ac­cess to short-term cred­it, gen­er­al­ly be­tween $5,000 and $50,000.

Wi­Pay was cre­at­ed in 2017 at a time when peo­ple in the Caribbean faced chal­lenges with dig­i­tal pay­ments and the lack of ‘fi­nan­cial in­clu­sion.’ It has grown to be­come one of the largest in­dige­nous, pri­vate­ly owned pay­ment plat­forms in the re­gion.