Kinara Capital targets Rs 200 cr loan disbursals to women-owned cos in FY23

MSME fintech Kinara Capital on Tuesday said it plans to disburse loans worth Rs 200 crore to women-owned businesses in the next financial year.

Kinara Capital is advancing women entrepreneurship with a commitment to disburse Rs 200 crore via its HerVikas women business loans programme in the coming fiscal year FY22-23, the company stated in a release.

HerVikas offers MSME women entrepreneurs access to collateral-free business credit with an automatic discount, thereby driving financial inclusion of an underserved segment, it said.

In the past two years, the company has disbursed more than Rs 125 crore across 2,000 HerVikas business loans to MSME women entrepreneurs.

"HerVikas is a successful programme because it is providing catalytic capital to MSME women entrepreneurs for business growth without a collateral requirement.

"In India, 90 per cent of MSME women entrepreneurs do not avail formal credit options, mostly due to lack of land or property collateral," said Hardika Shah, founder and CEO of Kinara Capital.

The non-banking finance company said it has supported more than 6,000 women entrepreneurs to date, with about 28 per cent of them becoming repeat customers.

This has led to a direct impact of Rs 10 crore in incremental income generation for the MSME women entrepreneurs and supported over 10,000 jobs in local economies.

Gender bias, social norms, and timely access to formal credit are some of the major challenges for women entrepreneurs seeking to grow their businesses.

Kinara has made a systemic shift by eliminating bias from its process and providing an upfront discount on collateral-free credit, it said.

It offers business loans in the range of Rs 1-30 lakh with the HerVikas discount automatically offered across all its products for women entrepreneurs. The product is available in more than 90 cities in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Puducherry.