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Most of the nominees for the Changemaker - Financial Transformation category this year have a common factor: Financial inclusion. They strive to either fund the unbanked — individuals or small enterprises and migrants — or create a credit score for marginalised people. They go where no banks go and fund people who are otherwise ignored by the formal banking system.
One of them will win the Changemaker - Financial Transformation award at a grand function in New Delhi on March 15.
The nominees are:
Faircent.com: India’s first person-to-person (P2P) lending platform, Faircent was founded in 2013 to create an organised alternative credit market for the unbanked and under-served segments of society, and to protect them from unscrupulous lenders.
Faircent has 5.5 lakh registered borrowers and 86,000 registered lenders with a disbursement of ₹55 crore so far.
Kinara Capital: Targeted at funding the missing ‘middle market’, Bengaluru-based Kinara Capital offers non-collateralised loans to micro and small enterprises to enable and empower entrepreneurship and job creation.
Through its custom risk assessment approach, Kinara processes loans in 7-10 days. As of September 30, 2018, it had offered 18,584 loans with an AUM (assets under management) of ₹539 crore.
Shram Sarathi: Udaipur-headquartered Shram Sarathi focusses on lending to the migrant workers’ community, which has poor access to formal financial services and is largely excluded from social security benefits.
The company serves as a ‘glass house’ for financial service providers to engage with migrants. It serves over 50,000 migrant families in Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra.
Shubh Loans: By preparing a credit score of low-income households, Bengaluru-based Shubh Loans helps banks and financial institutions make lending decisions on a section of society that is outside the formal financial system. Using its credit scores, the company helped extend credit of around ₹35 crore to people in the annual income group of ₹1.5-4.5 lakh in FY18.
Zerodha: It took just eight years for online discount brokerage Zerodha to become the country’s second largest stock broker by active retail client volumes. Using technology, Zerodha disrupted the stock trading industry dominated by big players such as ICICI and HDFC securities.
With 6 lakh active users, Zerodha contributes 8 per cent of the retail trade in the country.
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