Unlocking finance for women entrepreneurs in India

We helped Veritas size the women entrepreneur market to help make a strong case for including more women customers. We also worked with Veritas as it launched a new loan product for women, while also supporting the company’s plans to encourage more women to join the company and remain there.

Veritas Finance (Veritas) is an Indian non-financial banking company (NBFC) with a mission to foster financial inclusion for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) in rural and semi-rural areas. Many Indian MSMEs find it difficult to get loans from banks and other financial institutions. This challenge is particularly acute for women-owned MSMEs due to regulatory limitations and perceptions of women as business owners. In India it is that women are missing out on an estimated $20.2 billion, according to the SME Forum. Veritas knew it needed to be more inclusive to reach women customers, but wanted to learn more about how many women customers could be acquired, as well as the value for the business that this market could create.

In 2022, we helped Veritas to determine the size of the women entrepreneur market, find new customers, and create a Gender Action Plan (GAP) to launch a product for women.

Veritas has also taken significant steps to promote greater organisational awareness and promotion of workforce diversity. It has also introduced several gender-sensitive policies and initiatives targeted at women employees.

In 2023, Veritas successfully launched ‘Dhana Shakti’, a new woman-centred loan product designed to meet the unique needs of women entrepreneurs in urban and semi-urban areas. As Veritas continues to deliver on its GAP, it is already seeing the positive impact of investing in women. Women borrower numbers grew by 60 per cent between March 2023 and March 2024. Looking ahead, it plans to set internal diversity targets and further support the growth of the Dhana Shakti product to reach more women.