Vitas Palestine

Vitas Palestine (formerly called Ryada) started as a project in the Gaza Strip in 1994 under a cooperative agreement between USAID and Global Communities (formerly CHF International). The original design of the program was based on a housing finance downscaling model for banks, where by Global Communities’ role was to originate loans and provide te... chnical assistance on the construction process, while its partner banks provided the lending capital and were responsible for all loan processing, monitoring and collection. Global Communities and the banks shared the capital, risk and income, and it was anticipated that banks would eventually take over the portfolio. However, this plan did not materialize and instead over time Global Communities took on a larger role in managing the loan portfolio.Since then, Vitas Palestine has evolved into a program with its own portfolio serving low to moderate-income individual business and home owners who cannot access mainstream credit sources. It has expanded its branches, number of clients, product offering and gross loan portfolio significantly and is now one of the largest MFIs in Palestine. Since its inception, Vitas Palestine has disbursed 37,652 loans valuing $171.7 million. Vitas Palestine has ten branches throughout Palestine that are located in Gaza, Khanyounis, Hebron, Nablus, Beit Lahia, Qalqilya, Jenin, Tulkarem, Durra and Ramallah. Vitas Palestine vision is “All people with a desire and capacity to improve their lives should have access to the financial services they need to help them realize their potential and become full social and economic participants in their communities”.Vitas Group is a commercial holding company created by Global Communities (formerly CHF International) in 2009 as a long-term vehicle for fulfilling Global Communities’ mission in microfinance and small- and medium-enterprise finance.Read More