Social Impact Fund for Women Micro Entrepreneurs

Women entrepreneurs in rural economy have benefitted from several rounds of microfinance loans. Overt time their businesses have expanded and so have their aspirations for bigger loans. However microfinance sector since a decade has no product innovation to meet their cash flow debt needs. They are doing their own asset financing by multiple borrowing, servicing processing fees multiple times and thus increasing their risks. Entire energy is consumed to ensure timely repayment of loans and thus leaves them with little time to actually focus on their business.

Women micro entrepreneurs due to lack of collaterals and structured form of businesses are currently unbankable by mainstream financial institutions. Interest rates serviced by these women to meet their working capital needs are extremely high. There is no sector innovation to design a cash flow based loan products with nominal interest rate for women micro entrepreneurs in the informal economy.