[ad_1]
This Indian fintech and ethical lending product is designed exclusively for women.
Among the underserved and unbanked population, the number of women taking loans is extremely low. Unfortunately, women in India are not very active in the formal credit system and have found comfort in the brutal hands of the unorganized credit economy. Unorganized borrowing methods are known to charge high interest and have many hidden costs.
According to a study by Indifi Technologies, the number of women-led MSMEs in India has increased from 2.15 lakh to 1.23 crore in a decade. However, they face a financing gap of $158 billion and are largely dependent on informal sources.
Read more: #breakthebias ‘Sustainability in any sector is the only hope of the future’
Florence Capital is an Indian fintech and ethical lending product designed exclusively for women. FinTech represents a future where all Indian women are financially independent, empowered and ready to take on the world on their terms.
Tech Panda He spoke to Poshak Agrawal, CEO and Founder, Florence Capital, about the credit disparity between men and women in India.
Poshak Agrawal
Women are traditionally excluded from financial decisions. Our aim is to empower financial literacy and independence with the right frameworks and information.
“Female borrowers are growing faster than male borrowers,” he says.
According to CIBIL informationThe number of female borrowers will grow at a CAGR of 19% in five years, while for males it will grow at 14%. Florence Capital wants to overcome the inefficiencies in the traditional banking system. Only 27% of India is financially literate, out of this population, the distribution is 20% for women and 30% for men.
“The big vision is to make credit accessible to the underprivileged sections of the population in India. These units are often ‘new-to-credit’ (NTC) or have very little credit history and are therefore considered ‘risky’. Innovation in technology not only mitigates these risks but also provides appropriate/customized product offerings to these segments,” he added.
“The traditional banking system does not have the efficiency to meet these fast-growing segments because the credit evaluation procedures are archaic or conservative, the process is difficult, there are too many fees and there is a high return time,” he explains. More.
What do they do?
Florence Capital’s vision is simple – to financially liberate Indian women. The app-based fintech platform will simplify financing for Indian women by offering loans at low interest rates (as low as 1.5 percent) from the comfort of their homes and promises greater transparency.
FinTech will ensure that women in India have the necessary resources to feel empowered enough to achieve their entrepreneurial dreams. To add to this, their collection agents are all women. They are working on such women-centric initiatives to improve women’s access to capital. The company is doing more to reduce the loan approval time.
The fintech application aims to work on the vision of building a women-friendly and fair strategic credit system for women seeking credit.
Women face a higher rejection rate than their male counterparts. Even if you are able to get a loan, you often become a victim of collection malpractice and harassment. This has left a huge gap in getting fair and transparent loans.
By focusing on awareness and accountability in accessing credit and making financial decisions, Florence Capital has kept women out of trouble after taking out a loan. Agrawal emphasized that there is a problem with women’s morals and clear access to credit; Out of 100 disbursed loans, only 25 go to women. There is also discrimination.
“Women face a higher rate of rejection compared to their male counterparts. Even if they can get credit, they are often victims of collection malpractice and harassment. This leaves a huge gap in access to fair and transparent credit. While this gap is an opportunity, it is also used in the market to ensure fair, transparent and transparent access to credit.” Ethical lending is needed.” He explains.
Main characteristics
On the Florence Capital mobile app, women users can avail loans through a 100% digital process.
“The process is very simple and can easily be done from the comfort of your home. Our loans are machine-driven and we show the loan experience to the user,” explains Agrawal.
Our innovative credit writing system factors in women’s specific pain points
After registration, user has to upload her photo, PAN card and other important details. Once her loan is approved, she is asked to select a payment method for AMEs, and the loan amount is disbursed into the specified bank account. It does not take more than 10 minutes to complete the loan application.
“Our Customer Happiness and Loyalty team is always ready to help, and can even reach a user when they feel stuck at some point in the process. Our innovative loan underwriting system factors in women’s unique pain points,” he adds.
The following are the features:
- Fast personal loans up to INR 5 lakhs
- Moral credit
- Fast money transfers to bank accounts
- Flexible repayment options from 90 to 730 days
- There are no prepayment fees
- Women’s collection agents
- All women customer service team
- No harassment or humiliation.
- Small processing fee
- 50% of the loan is fast.
- There are no hidden fees and no deposit fees
Society and influence
FinTech prides itself on a first-class female loan collection team and customer service team, borrower convenience (women borrowers only meet other women) and clear, fair and transparent lending terms. They also offer credit awareness or counseling programs so that borrowers understand the impact of default on their credit scores.
Our community is all about bringing our borrowers and women together. It is a safe space for Indian women who want to live a productive, dignified and prosperous life with the essential financial resources provided by us.
“Our community is all about bringing our borrowers and women together. It is a safe haven for Indian women who want to live productive, dignified and prosperous lives with the necessary financial resources we provide them,” says Agrawal.
Their main functions include:
Learn Florence
Their micro-educational content breaks down financial concepts, makes finance easy to understand, and equips women to apply these concepts to overcome their daily challenges and achieve their goals.
Free Value-Added Services (VAS)
Borrowers also offer free VAS deals. They are currently offering one-on-one career counseling for borrowers, career development workshops and webinars on soft skills and business practices.
“Women have traditionally been left out of financial decisions. Our aim is to empower them with the right frameworks and information to encourage financial literacy and independence. We are building a community/network of women who can learn from our content and open up opportunities for each other,” he added.
origin
Florence Capital was founded in 2021 by Agrawal and Rahul Subramaniam, both serial entrepreneurs. A graduate of Princeton University with a degree in Economics and Finance, Agrawal founded his first company, Athena Education, one of the most popular in its segment in India. During his years at Princeton, he worked at Fortress Investment Group as one of two summer analysts.
It reminds me of realizing early in life that education is not only useful for oneself, but also the key to unlocking bigger and better opportunities and creating change or impact.
“Entrepreneurship is a way of being endlessly creative about the problem one wants to solve,” he says.
If we start designing things for women, they will appreciate it and it will help them to use their amazing potential
He adopted Princeton’s motto, “In the service of country and the service of all nations.”
He added: “It fueled my passion to do something different, to solve problems and make the world a better place.”
He remembers that the ‘aha’ moment came when he started to realize that society and things/systems/processes were mostly designed by men and by men.
“Women are traditionally backward-minded. They are either confined to the home or thrown out to carve out a place for themselves in a male-dominated world. If we start designing things for women, they will appreciate it and help them tap into their incredible potential,” she said.
He remembers this one instance when he was traveling in the subway and saw the women’s section.
“The need for a women’s section arose because women in India do not have many safe spaces. This is a huge problem and it extends beyond the limits of travel – into almost all areas of women’s lives, including finances. Women shy away from taking out loans and often feel left out of the whole financial process.
“There are so many strong and hardworking women in India who struggle every day to improve their quality of life, but lack the financial means and resources to pursue their dreams and live the life they want. to live. That’s the problem that gave birth to Florence Capital – an ethical mortgage loan app, designed exclusively to serve women. “To provide women with a safe space where they have always been denied and give them ways to live better than debt,” he enthuses.
Development history
The presence of Florentine capital in the country is growing from time to time. Currently it is actively disbursing loans in tier 1 cities like Mumbai, Bengaluru, NCR, Ahmedabad, Pune, Chennai, etc. and some tier 2 cities like Mysore and Coimbatore. On a pilot basis, it has provided loans in Jaipur, Ajmer, Bhopal, Udaipur and Indore.
“Over time, we plan to expand our operations to more Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities,” says Agrawal.
The fintech issued 1,500 loans between January 2021 and February 2022. With a default rate of about 2%, more than half of their loans come from mouths. Their credit history shows 50-50 between new to credit/thin credit profile and thick credit profile. 15% of borrowers are first time borrowers. Typically, women borrow money for medical expenses, family expenses, education and higher careers.
Read more: Women in Business: Education and Advice
As per their future plans, Women in India said they plan to provide ethical and transparent lending to build the largest women’s community in India.
“Every Woman Funded Society. As part of this, we want to share Florence’s learning rate and free VAS with our borrowers.
Post Views:
1,986
[ad_2]
Source link