Bangalore (Karnataka) [India], March 10 (ANI/NewsVoir): Kinara Capital, a fast-growing fintech driving financial inclusion of small business entrepreneurs, marks 4th year anniversary of its HerVikas program by allocating an additional Rs 400 crores disbursement in FY24 in discounted business loans for women entrepreneurs. The latest allocation brings the total commitment to date to Rs 700 crores solely dedicated to driving the financial inclusion of women entrepreneurs from the micro-small-medium enterprise (MSME) sector. Kinara Capital exceeded its previous disbursement goal of Rs 300 crores from FY20-23, with a 38 per cent higher disbursement of Rs 414 crores across 4,305+ HerVikas business loans for women-owned MSMEs.

Hardika Shah, Founder & CEO of Kinara Capital, said, "HerVikas has firmly established the importance and the viability of women-centric financial services in India. With approximately 100 crores disbursed each year, we are now doubling down and pledging Rs 400 crores disbursement in FY24 solely for MSME women entrepreneurs. This will lead to reaching 10,000 HerVikas discounted business loans by next year. Entrepreneurship is a powerful way to aim for gender parity. The financial independence of women immediately gives them agency and leads to the betterment of families and communities. Women Entrepreneurs can rapidly drive economic and social change and are critical to India's ambition of becoming a USD 5 trillion economy. "

Since the program was initiated in FY20, the impact of the HerVikas business loans has led to over Rs 125+ crores in Incremental Income Generation for women entrepreneurs and over 32,680+ jobs supported in local economies. Of these, 2,535+ are New Jobs created with 20 per cent of these new jobs going to women workers and 61 per cent of the new jobs to first-time wage earners. About 70 per cent of the jobs created are from MSME sub-sectors of Food Products, Textiles and Fashion/Clothing. The highest number of HerVikas business owners are from Tamil Nadu and the top sub-sector is Fashion/Clothing businesses in the Trading sector.

Impact of HerVikas - www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmJhUCWg18g

Kinara Capital is furthering its mission of financial inclusion with a Gender Lens Investing (GLI) approach. The HerVikas program was initiated to empower women entrepreneurs and the automatic discount is just one part of the solution. Kinara has addressed the topmost hurdle for women entrepreneurs by providing collateral-free business credit available from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 30 lakhs within 24 hours. With its multilingual myKinara App, the effective deployment of AI/ML removes human bias from credit-decisioning largely benefiting women entrepreneurs. This is important because while only 20 per cent of MSMEs in India are women-owned, they make up nearly 40 per cent of the USD 400 billion MSME credit gap, clearly indicating there are systemic challenges for women entrepreneurs.

Among others, these challenges include fewer women owning land or property to offer as collateral, inherent bias on part of the lenders against women as business owners, difficulty physically visiting a branch multiple times for loan applications, and a persistent digital and knowledge gap that limits access to information for women. Kinara Capital also offers omnichannel support with doorstep customer service, Whatsapp chat, email, missed call and toll-free phone number access to customer care. And lastly, the free Grow with Kinara workshop series offered in vernacular languages aims to bridge the knowledge gap by bringing forth trusted information to business owners.

The HerVikas program from Kinara Capital is available for MSME women entrepreneurs in 100+ cities across Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, and UT Puducherry.

Kinara Capital is a fast-growing fintech company and is globally recognized for disrupting the small business lending model in India by democratizing access to collateral-free business credit in India. Kinara Capital has disbursed over Rs 4,500+ crores to date across 87,000+ collateral-free business loans thereby propelling vast financial inclusion of India's MSME sector. Leading with a women-majority management team, Kinara Capital has raised the bar for gender inclusivity internally as an organization and externally with its HerVikas program for women entrepreneurs. The company is qualified as a Systemically Important NBFC by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and is a debt-listed entity on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE). Founded in 2011, and headquartered in Bangalore, Kinara Capital has 125 branches serving MSMEs across 100+ cities in India with a workforce of 1,600+ employees. Visit kinaracapital.com for more information 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 with respect to future events and are based on assumptions and subject to risk and uncertainties and subject to change at any time. Given business risks and uncertainties, undue reliance on these forward-looking statements should not be placed. Actual events or results may differ materially from those contained in the projections or forward-looking statements.

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