Kinara Capital Secures INR 52 Crores from IIX Women’s Livelihood Bond Series for HerVikas Low Cost Loan Program for Women Entrepreneurs
Bangalore, Karnataka, India:
Kinara Capital, a leading socially responsible fintech that promotes the financial inclusion of MSMEs, today announced it has secured 52 crores INR from Impact Investment Exchange (IIX) for the advancement of women entrepreneurs in India. This sustainable investment fund will be disbursed through Kinara Capital’s HerVikas discount loan program to approximately 2,500+ small, women-owned businesses. The expected impact of the partnership between IIX and Kinara Capital will generate additional income of INR 320 crore for women entrepreneurs.
“The investment of the IIX Women’s Livelihood Bond Series into our HerVikas program gives new impetus to the need for financial inclusion of women entrepreneurs. Empowering women has a strong impact on improving the quality of life of families and achieving gender parity can add 27% to India’s GDP, ”said Hardika Shah, Founder and CEO of Kinara Capital. “IIX is a pioneer in gender-focused investing and we are extremely honored to be part of its ecosystem to create lasting impact by advancing women entrepreneurs. “
Kinara Capital’s HerVikas program enables’his progress’ with an automatic initial 1% discount on the interest charges on fast and unsecured business loans in the range of 1 lakh INR to 30 lakhs. Kinara effectively tackles the inequitable credit deficit and related systemic issues by providing access to formal credit, industry knowledge and personalized customer service to women entrepreneurs.
IIX CEO and Founder Professor Durreen Shahnaz said: “After supporting Kinara in one of their early rounds and seeing the company grow steadily and with impact for nearly a decade, we are proud to invest again in Kinara Capital from the proceeds of the third installment of the Women’s Livelihood Bond series. At a time when COVID-19 has pushed governments, investors, and businesses to turn in on themselves and leave millions of underserved women behind, women-led businesses like Kinara Capital are spearheading of resilience to COVID by accelerating financial inclusion and empowering women entrepreneurs to be part of the solution for economic recovery. The IIX Women’s Livelihood Bond Series does what no one else dares to do – empower women and integrate them into the global financial system. But we don’t stop there. We will continue to push the boundaries as we continue to expand the Women’s Livelihood Bond series to create truly systemic change that will outlast any pandemic. “
The Women’s Livelihood Bond 3 (WLB3) is part of the US $ 150 million Women’s Livelihood Bond (WLB Series), a series of innovative debt securities that create sustainable livelihoods for more than 3 million women in developing countries. development. WLB3 supports women-focused businesses in India, Indonesia, Cambodia and the Philippines that directly help women respond, recover or rebuild their livelihoods during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Women-owned businesses account for around 20% of the over 60 million MSMEs in India, but the majority of them remain in the micro category. With data-driven credit decisions, Kinara ensures unbiased risk assessment of women business owners. In addition to closing the credit gap with unsecured loans, Kinara tackles systemic biases against women by challenging common practices such as requiring the presence of a male relative to apply for a loan. In addition, Kinara hosts client meetings and digital workshop series with tips and useful information in vernacular languages to help women entrepreneurs grow their businesses.
Kinara Capital’s HerVikas Low Cost Loan Program for Women-Owned MSMEs is available in more than 90 cities in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Telangana and UT Puducherry.
III is the pioneer in impact investing and world leader in sustainable development. We have transformed the financial system so that women, the environment and underserved communities finally have value and a voice in the global marketplace. Over the past decade, we’ve built the world’s largest crowdfunding platform for impact investing (Impact partners), has created innovative financial products such as the Women’s livelihood link and the Women’s Catalyst Fund, has managed award-winning business technical assistance programs such as IIX ACTS, and established a Impact Institute and Research and advice to build the sustainable investment market. To date, our work has expanded 53 countries, unlocked US $ 215 million private sector capital and had a positive impact on 87 million direct lives and households, and avoided more than 1.2 million tonnes of carbon. The foundation of IIX’s work is IIX values, the world’s first impact verification solution for every organization that effectively measures the social and environmental impact of an investment and adds value to the voices of underserved people. IIX has received numerous awards for its work, including the Oslo Business for Peace Prize, the “Nobel Prize for Business”. Learn more here: iixglobal.com
About Kinara Capital
Kinara Capital is a socially responsible non-bank fintech finance company (NBFC) that propels small business financial inclusion with fast and flexible unsecured business loans. To date, the company has disbursed over INR 2,000 crore on over 56,000 unsecured small business loans. The company has a predominantly female management team and is globally recognized for its innovations in SME lending. IFC / World Bank named Kinara Capital “Bank of the Year-Asia 2019” and Financial Time ranked it among the Top 100 High Growth Companies in Asia-Pacific. Headquartered in Bangalore, the company operates 110 branches in more than 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 regarding future events and are based on assumptions and subject to risks and uncertainties and subject to change at any time. Due to business risks and uncertainties, one should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. Actual events or results may differ materially from those contained in projections or forward-looking statements.
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