ADB, HSBC India set up $100 million partial guarantee programme for MFI sector

Asian Development Bank (ADB) and HSBC India have signed an agreement to establish a USD 100 million partial guarantee programme to support more than 4,00,000 micro-borrowers and mostly women-run micro-enterprises across India.

HSBC will expand its lending to microfinance institutions (MFIs) and non-bank finance companies, with ADB partially guaranteeing the loans, Manila-based multilateral funding agency said in a statement on Thursday.

This will expand HSBC’s risk appetite and deployed capital, helping to enhance private sector financing and improve financial inclusion in India, it said.

It is ADB’s first partnership with HSBC and under the agreement, to give impetus to this partnership, aggregated financing of an equivalent of USD 30 million is being initially disbursed to three MFIs in India by April 2022, it said.

MFIs have emerged as lifelines for underserved clients such as low-income households and small businesses as they struggled to access finance during the pandemic, it said.

This programme will strengthen microfinance as a tool to build economic resilience, reduce gender disparities, and support economic recovery across India, it said.

The partial guarantee arrangement will help MFIs to access funding for on-lending activities as they expand operations after the pandemic.

Launched in 2010, ADB’s microfinance programme has provided more than USD 1.8 billion in loans and helped mobilize USD 881 million in co-financing.

It has provided access to microloans for more than 8 million borrowers, 98 per cent of them women. Microfinance has improved livelihoods, reduced poverty, promoted gender equity, and spurred the growth of microenterprises and employment.