“From Borrowers To Builders: Women’s Role In India’s Financial Growth Story” Report released

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The report has been jointly published by TransUnion CIBIL, Women Entrepreneurship Platform (WEP) of NITI Aayog, and MicroSave Consulting (MSC).

Key Highlights

Steady Rise in Women Borrowers: Women seeking credit grew ~3X between 2019 and 2024, reflecting increased demand.
Demographics of Women Borrower: 60% of women borrowers are from semi-urban or rural areas.
- Women under 30 only account for 27% of retail credit uptake by women, compared to 40% for men.
Regional Status: Southern states have higher shares of women borrowers as compared to Northern and Central States
Rise in Awareness: 27 million women borrowers had checked their credit information and score with CIBIL.

Credit Aversion: Women avoid formal loans due to social norms, fear of default repercussions, and complex application processes.
Poor Banking Experience: Many banks are unwelcoming and fail to offer advisory services tailored to women’s needs.
Limited Institutional Support: Women are perceived as higher-risk borrowers due to limited credit history and business experience.
- E.g. 79% of women-owned businesses are self-financed, with only 7% of MSME credit directed to women.
Barriers to Credit readiness: Due to lack of necessary documentation, guarantors, and collateral.
- E.g. ~22.2% of women-led collective enterprises are not credit-ready.

Expand Women’s Access to Business Loans: Adopt policies for affordable credit, collect sex-disaggregated data and expand guarantee covers
Develop Gender-Intelligent Financial Products by designing tailored products addressing women’s lifecycle needs, social norms and structural barriers.
Reimagine Credit Risk Assessment: By using AI, big data to prevent gender bias.
Boost Credit Readiness: By promoting digital transactions, bookkeeping, and business formalization.