Credit bureau TransUnion CIBIL and NITI Aayog-supported Women Entrepreneurship Platform (WEP) on Friday launched a new initiative Seher to enhance the financial literacy and business skills of women entrepreneurs. The initiative will aim at improving awareness about finances and managing credit along with building a strong credit history for women entrepreneurs.
The initiative, according to WEP, is a part of its Financing Women Collaborative (FWC) that focuses on improving credit access for women entrepreneurs.
Speaking on the launch, Anna Roy, Mission Director, WEP, and Principal Economic Adviser, NITI Aayog said, “To get timely and better access to finance for business growth, entrepreneurs must gain knowledge on all aspects of finance, including their CIBIL Rank and commercial credit report.”
“WEP aims to empower women entrepreneurs by overcoming information asymmetry and providing support across different pillars such as entrepreneurship promotion, access to finance, market linkages, training and skills development, mentoring and networking, and access to business development services,” Roy added.
According to the TransUnion CIBIL data, demand for business loan by women jumped over 3.9x between FY2019 and FY 2024 while the women borrower count increased by 10 per cent. As of March 2024, women constituted 38 per cent of the 1.5 crore borrowers with live business loans.
The portfolio balance for business loans held by women grew by 35 per cent CAGR from March 2019 to March 2024.
“Business growth is directly dependent on credit access, credit awareness and financial literacy. We aim to propagate financial knowledge and improve the skills of women entrepreneurs so that they can manage their businesses successfully to achieve sustained growth. This program will also help support India’s $5 trillion economy goal as more and more women are empowered to start and grow their businesses profitably,” said Rajesh Kumar, MD and CEO, TransUnion CIBIL.
Importantly, last month MSME Ministry had launched Yashasvini campaign to support 1 lakh women entrepreneurs in smaller cities with skilling and capacity building.