Loading ...I think it was Wayne Gretzky who said that what made him a great ice hockey player was that he skated to where the puck was going to be.
Entrepreneurs should go where the opportunities are and funding is easy to obtain. With this budget, focus on “aam aadmi” , Mohammed Yunus getting the Nobel Prize etc. the timing for microfinance seems to be good. Within microfinance if the herd is focused on rural microfinance maybe there is an opportunity in urban microfinance.
There is lot of money available for microfinance in general and some specifically for urban microfinance. The team probably should contain a banker who understands consumer lending and it will probably end up setting up an NBFC ( Non Banking Financial Company) which I think requires minimum 2 crores capital to get a license from RBI. Getting funded is never easy so the team has to be top notch. I spoke to Caitlin Baron ( caitlin@msdf.org) who heads microfinance in India for MSDF ( Michael & Susan Dell Foundation) . They are keen to invest in startup NBFC’s who target urban microfinance and she is willing to engage in discussions with good teams even before they have a business plan to help them shape a business plan.
If the team is in Delhi - NCR I would be happy to engage as well.
It would also be interesting to hear comments from readers on whether they think this is a good area to get into or not.
Interesting discussion which leads to a not-so-original conclusion: the Microfinance sector still needs to be enhanced, be it from purely operational aspects or from the geographical and poverty outreach aspects.
In this regards, I would like to inform ventureWoods readers that the Srijan 2008 microfinance business plan is calling for Executive Summaries by March 15th.
Itr aims to allow startups as well as established MFI with innovative and well built concepts to gain visibility, cash prizes, and professional mentoring.
I invite you to take a look at our website www.srijan2008.com/ send inquiries to info@srijan2008.com.
VentureWoods authors-
It would be of great help to promote this unique initiative in India through a proper post.
Thanking you in advance.
Meryem
I am very much interested in ensuring that the lives of the domestic servernts is transformed. The economic boom which is being witnessed by upper and middle classes will have to reach the others as well.
See if this appeals as an idea. It is possible to get the group togather of say kaamwali bai. Is is possible to ensure that they start an organization similar to what ODS (organized dabbawala’s in Bombay) and upgrade their living standard, get a salary of 10 - 15 K per month, and benefits like weekly off, 8 days of sick leave, 15 days of paid annual leave, group insurance etc.
At the same time ensuring six sigma quality of services to the housholds paying for their services. On time reporting for duties, neat and tidy completion of cleaning, dusting and other work. Customer gets a stand-in servant in case the regular one is absent.
Whole venture is microfinanced to kickoff the operations. As such finance is not necessary as there is no equipment etc needed. May be bicycles for transport can be provided. However such finance is necessary in the initial stages to ensure the QoS.
I am sure somewhere this experiement has been put to work and I would be glad to see the outcome.
Hi Group,
I found you while Googling.
I am CEO of Jagriti e-Sewa (www.jagriti.com) a self supporting rural development Project in Punjab, India. We are also known as the pioneers in introducing applications of ICT in agriculture.
In operation since 2001, Jagriti has worked extensively on the IT interventions for agriculture and youth deployment for rural development. Over the years, we evolved a lot and in our pursuance of a self sustaining model, and under the guidance of agencies like NABARD, we introduced scientific cultivation of (more remunerative, more environmentally friendly) herbal crops in Punjab.
One thing led to another and we found ourselves doing value addition to the herbals cultivated by the farmers and making consumer health products (www.steva.co.in), and are today the W.I.D.E.S.T. range of sugar free-herbal-low calorie foods in India. Our products have already found way to reach most valuable health chains like the Fortis Healthcare, Dubdengreen and Le Marche. Some part of profits from these products go back to Jagriti to ensure sustainable work.
We now have several products that are healthy to use and provide safer (all natural, not ‘chemically beautified’) alternatives to the present day one, e.g., tea/health drinks/soups. Many of these are vend-able (@ Rs 10-12-15) and in a fully hygienic manner.
Replicating our deep committment to community development with sustainable business, we are keen to take this product line to the urban areas through youth, women employment so that we connect to the real people who need profits and earning through hard work. We have developed a model in which the educated, willing youth can start working in an investment of approx Rs 15000. The likely earning of the participant will be of the order of Rs 8,000-10,000. Some level of hand-holding has been built into the model. We have left further details to be worked out in mutual consultation.
This mail to you is being sent to you to find out if you feel interested in this activity ? If so, who could be the MFI partners to work with in an urban setting?
We shall be ready to work with you further in case this proposal finds favour with you. Please feel free to contact the undersigned at mail ID jsandha@jagriti.com or phone: 09216 8888 30.
Regards
J.S. Sandha
CEO
Jagriti e-Sewa
Jalandhar
just adding to the sector developments, Sequoia invested $11.5mn in SKS.. first of “pure VC” investments in the field..
http://www.cnbc.com/id/17844093
Looks like there is lot of momentum building up in this field….
SriKrishna,
Hi I would be keen to volunteer to help if possible in some manner. your link is leading to the Ujjivan site, would help if you can mail me directly at deepakmnadiger@gmail.com or give me your contact details so that I can get in touch with you.
HI! My name is Srikrishna and I work with Ujjivan in Bangalore. We now have 12 branches in North/NW and East Bangalore. We’ve been able to build volumes and scale rapidly. The opportunity is great. There’s a large population of ubran poor, typically in a relatively small geographical area. That makes it very viable. Distances traveled to acquire customers is much less than it is in rural areas, hence those costs are lower. But the flipside is that rents, recruitment costs etc are high. We believe that the urban poor have been largely ignored by the govt. and other programs and that is the gap we are trying to address. Do get in touch with me if you would like to know more or meet…
Hi,
I have been following this discussion thread with some interest… I worked with a few SHGs in one of my consulting assignments and found the scale required is quite huge and also, there are some key problems in operationalising this in terms of having feet on ground who are acceptable to the community and who can assess the risk and get the community to back well. the level of local political involvement simply shoots whenever a community becomes successful. While slightly apolitical areas might be easier to work, places where cadre based parties are strong, invariably these groups get involved and government schemes like SJSRY get linked.
Also, the scalability of the model is when u can create success stories where groups went to substantially improve the lifestyles, for which the groups need to move onto mainstream finance from Micro finance mode. but given the obsession that financial institutions in india for address proof issued by governments ( think bpl cards, ration cards, voter id etc) , it becomes extremely difficult to sustain this and take them to the next level…..
there are lots of other such issues, if anyone is interested in discussing pl mail me, people around banaglore , we can catch up over a coffee for this, would love working with any group if they need any help…..
I tend to agree with Deepak Shenoy.
In cities, there have been cases of drivers, dhobis and domestic servants who have taken personal loans, and defaulted. Some (especially drivers) also just disappear. From all that we read, the default levels with rural women is far lower.
As soon as we put tighter norms for evaluating credit risk, and following up on defaults, more in line with regular bank credit, we are moving to a higher cost level. The viability of the microfinance model may be lost, in that case.