Prayatna microfinance, a company offering monetary services to low-income families since 2017 and since then the organization has been working relentlessly to contribute to building an Aatmanirbhar Bharat (self-reliant India). The company aims to establish itself as a finance bank that aids the needy. The organization has adopted the Joint liability group (JLG) model of Microfinancing which is a lending model that enables a group of Women (usually 5-25) to take loans for income-generating activities by forming groups, wherein the group members guarantee each other's loans. In the initial five years, the organization started operations in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Delhi.
In the current FY (2022-23), the company will achieve AUM of more than INR 200 crores. The company is at the expansion stage for which they are making certain advancements in the system and functioning which will help to grow the company further and there will be no stopping it at any point in time. For these advancements, they are hiring new teams to work on the daily operations, putting up 2nd and 3rd lines of management in place for better functioning of the company, and developing further SOPs and systems to make the operations streamline and smooth.
Prayatna stands on the following four values, namely-Ownership, teamwork, integrity and service excellence. Prayatna is unique as the processes are driven through technology, which significantly cuts down on cost and manual error and at the same time lessens the requirement of physical documents. The borrowers are the women belonging to the underdeveloped part of India. Prayatna is learning and evaluating what helps people to move out of poverty faster. Surprisingly, even during the covid-19 pandemic, the company didn't have any bad debts and kept evolving. So far, Prayatna has had around 1.5 lakh happy customers and successful deals. With the ongoing success of the company, these numbers shall increase rapidly. Currently, the organization partners with Canara Bank, Punjab National Bank, Bank of Baroda, State bank of India, SIDBI, Mas financials, Muthoot financial services and many others.
Somya Srivastava, the CEO, of Pratayna Microfinance, says, "We uplift the last leg of the country sometimes that they can come above the below poverty line sector and make a living for themselves. Whenever any person, institution, society or nation wants to progress and carve a niche for itself based on its capability, only then it gets recognition and respect, wealth and prosperity"
Prayatna also aims to train rural poor in simple skills and enable them to utilize the available resources and contribute to employment and income generation in areas. In the next five years, it plans to expand its operations in the South and West regions to diversify its portfolio. Prayatna will expand operations in new territories strategically, with a focus on regions with limited availability of financial services. Prayatna is that genuinely necessary effort required to inspire that part of the general public, which is overflowing with thoughts, energy and potential yet is hampered by finances to understand and achieve dreams.
