Empowering Rural Women Entrepreneurs: Enhancing Financial Well-being with FIA Global

FIA Educating Women on Financial Independence

FIA Global Brings Affordable Digital Financing to Women and Other Unbanked Persons

FIA Global, a woman-led organisation offers a comprehensive range of sachet financial services through its state-of-the-art fintech platform that is powered by artificial intelligence (AI). These services are designed for women and women-owned businesses and other financially excluded populations who live or work in underserved geographies and economically backward areas in India.

FIA Global uses its deep-tech expertise, including investments in AI and developing AI skillsets; investments in a massive rural distribution network, with 50% as women banking agents and its large network of financial service alliances with banks, microfinance institutions (MFIs), insurance companies, mutual fund houses, and the government of India to deploy financial inclusion solutions at scale.

 

Women to fulfill their financial potential with FIA Bank Sakhis

FIA Global Bank Sakhis Transforming Lives

FIA Global works with these financial service partners to customize their products for women, micro and small entrepreneurs, and other unbanked markets. FIA integrates the financial products provided by its financial partners into its platform and helps them reach the rural markets through the existing network of banking agents.

Speaking on the subject, Ms. Seema Prem, the CEO and Co-Founder of FIA Global, comments, “FIA invests time and effort to mobilize and build the capacity of SHGs at scale to support our rapid outreach to close the finance gap. We also partner with public institutions like the National Skills Development Corporation and the edtech company Unnati to provide vocational training to SHG members to enable women to get the necessary skills for starting their businesses. Through this focussed approach FIA, an impact fintech has been serving the low-income households in South Asia.”

FIA Global has a three-pronged approach of expanding the services into the new regions.

1. Educating and training women to work as banking agent micro-entrepreneurs in new target regions in India and in Bangladesh. Women run about 18 percent of FIA Global's banking outlets. These women are selected, educated and trained by FIA Global trainers. The model accelerates the inclusion of women and minorities in formal finance. The women are an effective channel to get more local community women to use banking services.
2. Improving financial literacy. Creating financial resilience for lower-income women, women micro-entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs and owners of SMEs requires targeted public education efforts. FIA has been organizing, nurturing and enabling linkages with banks and MFIs by working with the local community partners (NGOs) to create and support Self Help Groups (SHGs). FIA also uses referrals to fill the gap through skill building initiatives.
3. Connecting women-owned businesses to financing and re-engaging women in the workforce. FIA in association with the community partners, provides training and links the women entrepreneurs who operate in cash economies, who are not noticed by the banks, who are also likely to be targets of unscrupulous money lenders. FIA and its partners also get access for these women to a larger pool of working capital loans, and agricultural and livestock loans at market rates. Once credit history is built, banks extend larger loans.

The digital finance model of FIA Global makes it easy for women-owned or -led businesses to avail themselves of efficient banking services to pay wages and bills digitally and access working capital. The business owners can also avail of the benefits and as much as they can provide their employees, through enrolment in social security schemes, including life and health insurance, and pension plans.

In the post-pandemic world, women suffered job losses and depleted savings, losing financial independence. The absence of bank accounts worsened the situation, limiting savings and social protections. Two-thirds of working women lost jobs in April 2020, with few returning unlike men. Even after two years, women business owners in South Asia face a financing gap that threatens their survival. In India, the gender gap in accessing credit for women-owned MSMEs is estimated at $158 billion due to the pandemic. FIA Global strives to create gender-inclusive financial systems and prevent regression of women's progress in finance and workforce integration.

FIA Global One of 4 Winners from India among the BRICS Countries

FIA Global wins the prestigious BRICS women's innovation contest, Mulan 2022

FIA Global was one of 4 winners from India among the BRICS countries, to have been awarded the BRICS WBA award for 2022

FIA Global, India’s leading financial services organization with a mission to bring financial inclusion to every doorstep in the subcontinent, has won the international BRICS Women Innovation Contest 2022, held in Beijing in June 2022.

Seema Prem, the CEO and Co-founder of FIA Global, has been recognized as an outstanding, and dynamic woman entrepreneur, committed to the vision of making financial inclusion simple for banks and their rural customers. Seema has been instrumental in creating socially impactful products and services to meet the needs of unserved communities and markets and lead FIA’s efforts to expand its global footprint. Emphasizing technology driven, integrated solutions, her focus is on building high impact, sustainable programs to reach the last mile. She is also responsible for advocacy, governance, and building strategic relationships with governments, financial institutions and other key partners to support and scale social innovations.

Seema is the recipient of the UN Women Transforming India Awardee, 2018 and is the finalist in the Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award 2021, by the Schwab Foundation.

About BRICS Awards

The BRICS Women’s Business Alliance (WBA) aims to promote women’s entrepreneurship and women’s potential in the BRICS countries. The Contest is open to all business women in BRICS countries, and will recognize outstanding business women devoted to promoting social welfare and economic development in different fields across BRICS nations, and promote the exchange of best practices and innovative initiatives led by women, thus advancing the cooperation among business women across BRICS nations. This year, the BRICS WBA Mulan Award was granted to 15 candidates as part of the BRICS Women Innovation Contest and FIA Global was one of 4 winners from India to have won the prestigious award this year.

The BRICS Women Innovation Contest is co-sponsored by the Indian, Russian, Brazilian and South African Chapters of the WBA. The contest is for all women entrepreneurs across the BRICS countries to unleash women's potential and innovation in the market.

About FIA Global:

FIA Global, founded in 2012 and headquartered in Gurgaon, India, is in the business of making financial inclusion simple by leveraging technology through its neobanking solution, FINTAP, and creating avenues of outreach for the delivery of financial services to the unbanked and underserved. FIA is enabling and empowering millions of people deprived of banking services by bringing it to their doorstep. For more, please visit https://fiaglobal.com/