Designated Funds to Extend Financial Inclusion to an estimated 2500+ Women-Owned Small Businesses in India
Kinara Capital, a leading socially responsible fintech driving MSME financial inclusion, today announced securing INR 52 crores from Impact Investment Exchange (IIX) for the advancement of women entrepreneurs in India. This sustainable investment fund will be disbursed via Kinara Capital’s established HerVikas discounted loan program to an estimated 2500+ women-owned small businesses. The expected impact of the partnership between IIX and Kinara Capital will generate an incremental income of INR 320 crores for women entrepreneurs.
The HerVikas program by Kinara Capital enables ‘her progress’ with an automatic upfront discount of 1% on interest costs on fast, collateral-free business loans in the range of INR 1 lakh to 30 lakhs. Kinara is effectively addressing the inequitable credit gap and related systemic issues by providing access to formal credit, industry knowledge, and personalized customer service to women entrepreneurs.
IIX’s CEO and Founder, Professor Durreen Shahnaz, said, “Having supported Kinara in one of their initial equity rounds and having watched the company grow steadily and with impact for nearly a decade, we are proud to invest in Kinara Capital again from the proceeds of the third tranche of the Women’s Livelihood Bond Series. At a time when COVID-19 caused governments, investors, and businesses to turn inward and leave behind millions of underserved women, women-led enterprises like Kinara Capital are spearheading COVID-resilience from the ground up by accelerating financial inclusion and empowering women entrepreneurs to be part of the solution for economic recovery. IIX’s Women’s Livelihood Bond Series is doing what no one else dares to do – valuing women and making them a part of the global financial system. But we’re not stopping there. We’re going to keep pushing the boundaries by continuing to expand the Women's Livelihood Bond Series so that we create truly systemic change that will outlast any pandemic.”
The Women’s Livelihood Bond 3 (WLB3) is part of the USD $150 million Women’s Livelihood Bond (WLB Series), a series of innovative debt securities that create sustainable livelihoods for over 3 million women across developing countries. The WLB3 is supporting women-focused enterprises in India, Indonesia, Cambodia, and the Philippines that are directly supporting women to respond to, recover from, or rebuild their livelihoods in the COVID-19 pandemic.
Women-owned businesses are about 20% of the 60+ million MSMEs in India, however, the majority of these remain in the micro category. With data-driven credit decisioning, Kinara ensures a bias-free risk assessment of women business owners. Moreover to addressing the credit gap with collateral-free loans, Kinara tackles systemic bias against women by defying common practices such as asking for the presence of a male relative to apply for a loan. In addition, Kinara hosts customer meets and digital workshop series with useful tips and information in vernacular languages to help women entrepreneurs scale their business.
Kinara Capital’s HerVikas discounted loan program for women-owned MSMEs is available in 90+ cities across the states of Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, and UT Puducherry.
About Impact Investment Exchange (IIX)
IIX is the pioneer in impact investing and the global leader in sustainability. We have transformed the financial system so that women, the environment and underserved communities are finally given a value and a voice in the global market. Over the past decade, we have built the world’s largest crowdfunding platform for impact investing (Impact Partners), created innovative financial products such as the Women's Livelihood Bond and the Women’s Catalyst Fund, operated award-winning enterprise technical assistance programs such as IIX ACTS, and established an Impact Institute and Research & Advisory to build the sustainable investing market. To date, our work has spanned 53 countries, unlocked US$215 million of private-sector capital, and positively impacted over 87 million direct and household lives, and avoided over 1.2 million tons of carbon. The foundation of IIX's work is IIX Values, the world’s first impact verification solution for every organization, which effectively measures the social and environmental impact of an investment and gives value to the voices of the underserved. IIX has received numerous awards for its work including the Oslo Business for Peace Award, the ‘Nobel Prize for Business.’ Learn more here: iixglobal.com
About Kinara Capital
Kinara Capital is a socially responsible fintech non-banking financial company (NBFC) propelling the financial inclusion of small business entrepreneurs with fast & flexible collateral-free business loans. To date, the company has disbursed INR 2000+ crores across 56,000+ collateral-free small business loans. The company boasts a women-majority management team and is globally recognized for its innovations in SME lending. IFC/World Bank named Kinara Capital as ‘Bank of the Year-Asia 2019’ and Financial Times ranked it among the Top 100 High-Growth Companies in Asia-Pacific. Headquartered in Bangalore, the company operates 110 branches in 90+ cities in India. Kinara Capital is recognized as a Systemically Important NBFC by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and is a debt listed entity on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE). Click here for more information kinaracapital.com and follow us on Twitter @KinaraCapital
This press release may contain projections and other forward-looking statements regarding future events or future financial performance. These statements are only predictions and reflect our current beliefs and expectations with respect to future events and are based on assumptions and subject to risk and uncertainties and subject to change at any time. Given business risks and uncertainties, undue reliance on these forward-looking statements should not be placed. Actual events or results may differ materially from those contained in the projections or forward-looking statements.
Financial News Bureau
