HIAS Economic Advancement Fund (EAF) provides access to financial products and services that promote economic opportunity and financial well-being for low-income forcibly displaced individuals, families, entrepreneurs, and their communities.

EAF was founded in 2022 by HIAS, the Jewish humanitarian organization that provides critical services to refugees, asylum seekers, and other forcibly displaced people around the world. What began as a microenterprise development program of HIAS in 2017 serving two geographic markets, has since developed into a separate wholly owned subsidiary serving 14.

EAF represents a continuation of more than a century of HIAS history. In 1923, HIAS launched HIAS Immigrant Bank to facilitate money transfers to and from newly arrived immigrants’ families abroad — a service not offered by most U.S. banks. While the bank was later acquired, decades later HIAS has taken action again to fill a gap in mainstream finance by establishing EAF to expand support for entrepreneurial refugees across the U.S. We’ve seen again and again that when newcomers have the tools to leverage valuable skills from their home countries and achieve economic self-sufficiency, that’s not only good for their families and their neighborhoods — it’s good for America as a whole.