KUMAR NIBIR
Mayank Mangle
Indian Institute of Technology Bombay - Shailesh J. Mehta School of Management
Ashish Pandey
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The organization(Svatantra) provides affordable financial and non-financial solutions to rural women who have taken up entrepreneurship. Currently, the organization has 120,249 active clients across three states (Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh) and a total client portfolio of 128 crores.
They provide individual loans to customers, largely catering to the rural. The loans can be used for business requirements such as working capital or capital expenditure, among others. Ananya wants to grow her company to become a small finance bank and eventually a national bank. But now she is focused on growing the portfolio by leveraging more technology. From cashless disbursement, her microfinance is moving towards cashless collections too
Svatantra team is committed to constantly develop more effective financial products so that they can provide opportunity to the needy people in the society by which they can start their own business and generate their own livelihood.
The aim is to encourage entrepreneurship where traditional banking systems cannot penetrate. They achieve this through a holistic financial and non-financial offering, with micro-credit being the main focus. The organisation is based on the tenets of entrepreneurship, transparency, and disruption through innovation.
Innovation and technological advancements are emphasised on in order to integrate, optimise, and differentiate core business processes as well as to distinguish product lines. On this front, they are the only MFI in the country to have 100% cashless disbursements.
As per Miss Ananya Birla, the founder of Svaa, the idea behind the founding of Svatanta is:
She wanted to develop a company that can become a small finance bank and eventually a national bank which will cater to the population of the rural and small towns of the country.
She also wanted to use technology to make the loan disbursement and recovering process more customer friendly so that it can be reachable to each and every individual of the country whether rich-poor or rural-urban. She is focussed on growing the portfolio by leveraging more technology. From cashless disbursement, the microfinance is also moving towards cashless collections too.
Miss Ananya Birla has done her economics and management at University of Oxford, United Kingdom. She is the daughter of the 10th richest Indian, chairman of the Aditya Birla group, Mr. Kumar Mangalam. She founded Svatantra Microfinance at the age of only 17.
Svatantra makes small loans to women entrepreneurs based in rural India.
· Within just a year since its inception, Svatantra Microfinance had 10,000 customers, 51 employees, 9 running branches in two states and zero repayment default. As of April 2016, the company had more than 600 employees across 70 branches in four Indian states.
· Only MFI in the country with 100% cashless disbursements. The organisation has a 100% cashless disbursement through National Electronic Funds Transfer (NEFT); and also helps its clients open bank accounts, adhering to one of its core missions of financial inclusion.
· Beginning 2016, the ICRA assigned the long-term rating of ICRA A- with stable outlook for the Rs. 100.00 crore bank facilities and an MFI grade of M3+ for Svatantra's ability to manage its microfinance activities in a sustainable manner.
· They have impacted lives of more than 120,000 people through micro finance and other products. Various stories can be found on their website where their client expresses how the micro finance provided by Svatantra has impacted their lives in a huge way.
It caters to the people from the bottom of the pyramid section to engage in entrepreneurial activities and support Small and Medium scale industries.
It offers livelihood-related loans at 22% interest rate, as compared with standard microfinance companies whose interest rates range between 25-26 %. The organisation has a 100% cashless disbursement through National Electronic Funds Transfer (NEFT); and also helps its clients open bank accounts, adhering to one of its core missions of financial inclusion. Svatantra follows the practice of cashless disbursals to borrowers through their bank accounts. Agents and field officers do not carry money with them. Joint lending groups in villages ensure everybody stands guarantee for the other. The company uses an integrated software, developed by Infrasofttech, for its loan management and accounting requirements, with branches being fully computerised. In addition, the field staff uses an Android app for updating the collection data on-field itself, on a real-time basis.
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Chaya Mukund Mohrile, Customer
