Alphabet-backed Aye Finance allocates ₹100 crore for Shakti loans

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iFinance, a new era Non-bank financing companylaunched ‘Shakti Loan’, a loan product developed to alleviate the credit challenges facing women in India.

The fintech lender backed by Capital G (the investment arm of Google subsidiary Alphabet) has allocated Rs 100 crore for the Shakti loan in the current financial year.

This NBFC, which started its journey in the year 2014, aims to reach out to 10,000 women by providing them with affordable credit according to their unique requirements along with non-financial support through its ‘non-profit’ arm FAME, which is of no less importance to their growth.

Shakti loans

The Shakti Loans product was developed by Aye Finance in collaboration with the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP), a global partnership of more than 30 leading development organizations, including the World Bank, the United Nations Development Program and the Mastercard Foundation, working to advance the lives of the poor, especially Women, through financial inclusion.

Commenting on the launch of this women-only product, Neeraj Kaushik, Executive Vice President, Aye Finance said, “Aye is the lender of choice by the microenterprise sector in India, and by launching Shakti Loan, we are committed to becoming the lender of choice for women-led businesses as well.

We are optimistic about Shakti Loan being a game-changer for women’s small businesses and have set aside Rs 100 crore for this product in the current financial year.”

Small businesses led by women are making a significant contribution to the economic metrics of India, but their potential is still largely untapped due to the systemic barriers they face.

Small-scale women entrepreneurs cite lack of access to capital as the biggest barrier to managing and growing their businesses.

The Shakti loan by Aye is designed to address the challenges faced by women-led businesses and ensure they are provided with sufficient capital to help them unlock their massive growth potential.

Aye Finance has completely customized the journey of obtaining loans for small business women, addressing the hurdles they face at every step.

“By providing affordable credit, we hope the tailor-made nature of Loan Shakti will help unlock the growth potential of women micro-entrepreneurs and contribute to the advancement of women’s economic empowerment in India,” said Xavier Vaz, President, CGAP, Financial Services for Equality. and growth.

“We are delighted to collaborate with Aye Finance on the launch of this product; their approach to financing for small and medium enterprises (MSME) and their use of artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) models to reach underserved sectors is very exciting and has a lot of potential to improve financial inclusion.”

Since its inception, Aye Finance has enabled the financial inclusion of more than 6,50,000 small businesses, having disbursed more than INR 7,000 Crore for them.