The second meeting of the Financing Women Collaborative (FWC), a key initiative of the Women Entrepreneurship Platform (WEP), was held in Mumbai on Friday to deliberate and address issues with relevant stakeholders towards accelerating access to finance for women entrepreneurs.

The event included an engaging session exploring “Perspectives on encouraging banks to finance women beyond SHG groups” and a panel discussion titled “Accelerating women’s access to finance: Unlocking the potential of the women-led economy for achieving Vision 2047.”

As part of the workshop, Anna Roy, Mission Director, WEP, and Principal Economic Adviser, NITI Aayog, launched several initiatives.

She announced new collaborations to support women entrepreneurs by strengthening their access to finance.

Key highlights included the announcement of a partnership between MAVIM and MSC under FWC to improve access to finance through alternate credit rating mechanisms and work with banks to offer more tailored products for women entrepreneurs in Maharashtra. There was also an MoU exchange between WEP and GroW Network, founded by AfD, SIDBI, and Shakti Sustainable Energy Foundation.

It also featured the launch of the “Seher” program by TU CIBIL and the launch of the Shine program in partnership with CreditEnable to strengthen the credit readiness of women-led enterprises. Additionally, SEWA Bank’s commitment to reaching out to more women entrepreneurs as a member of FWC was announced.

The event featured an impressive line-up of speakers from NITI Aayog, Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the Ministry of Finance, MSME, SIDBI, State Bank of India (SBI), Bank of India, Gates Foundation, Mahila Arthik Vikas Mahamandal (MAVIM), TU CIBIL, and MSC.

Speaking at the event, Neeraj Nigam, Executive Director (ED), Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said, “FWC is among the first initiatives exemplifying a true public-private partnership. Efforts to promote financial inclusion involve both demand and supply sides. While numerous initiatives have effectively tackled supply-side issues to a good extent, FWC’s initiatives will go a long way in addressing demand-side constraints.”

Jitendra Asati, Director (Financial Inclusion), Department of Financial Services (DFS), Ministry of Finance, Government of India, said, “Relooking the financial inclusion agenda through a gender lens can accelerate India’s banking sector efforts towards women-led economic development. Any inclusive effort focusing on women improves conditions for children, households, and larger communities.”

The meeting was organised by WEP in partnership with TransUnion CIBIL (TU CIBIL) and MicroSave Consulting (MSC).

WEP, incubated in NITI Aayog in 2018 as an aggregator platform, transitioned into a public-private partnership in 2022.

FWC, an initiative of WEP launched in September 2023, aims to enhance access to finance for women entrepreneurs in India. It is chaired by the Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) and co-chaired by TU CIBIL, with MSC as its secretariat.