About Us
In the decade leading up to 2009, the Non-Bank Finance Company-Micro Finance Institution (NBFC-MFI) model proved itself to be a viable and sustainable means of providing access to finance and meet the financial requirements of the bottom of the pyramid population. As a dedicated credit delivery channel for vast un-banked/under-banked segments, NBFC-MFIs have been playing a significant role in taking forward the Financial Inclusion agenda of the Government of India. What sets NBFC-MFIs apart is the fact that they do not depend on grants or subsidies to provide unsecured loans people with low incomes and no access to the banking system. Instead, they have used market oriented solutions that encourage self-reliance and entrepreneurship amongst its clients.
By 2009, NBFC-MFIs were contributing to a significant proportion of the aggregate Microfinance activity in India. In FY2009-10, this class of institutions had, at a pan-India level, succeeded in reaching out to over 23 million low income clients with total lending in excess of Rs 1800 Crores. As the NBFC-MFI industry grew, so did its need for transparency and better governance. It was against this backdrop that the industry felt the need for an organization that would establish a framework for fair practices and client protection for NBFC-MFIs and promote the development of a robust Microfinance industry in India.
Who We Are
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) vide its letter dated 16th June, 2014 accorded recognition to MFIN as Self Regulatory Organisation (SRO) of NBFC-MFIs.
MFIN works closely with regulators and other key stakeholders and plays an active part in the larger financial inclusions dialogue through the medium of microfinance.
MFIN Organogram
Figure: MFIN Organogram
Governing Board
Mr. Rakesh Dubey is a Management Graduate. He has more than 20 years of experience in the Microfinance domain and has an expertise of setting up MFIs- domestic as well as internationally.
Prior to joining the SVCL team, Mr. Dubey has co-founded SONATA Finance Pvt. Limited and CASHPOR, the leading Micro Finance Institutions which are serving more than 2 million households in the Hindi heartland .
Mr. Devesh Sachdev is the cofounder & CEO of Fusion Microfinance Pvt. Ltd. Transparency, Governance and commitment to create value for all stakeholders keeping clients at the centre are key values of Fusion. He is a XLRI Post Graduate with 16 years of experience in the Service Industry prior to starting this venture. Amongst the diverse experiences, his expertise lies in building business, managing large teams in a cost efficient manner, strategy, key relationship management and handling all dimensions of the business. Devesh has served various Boards since 2008.
Meenal Patole is the promoter and CEO of Agora Microfinance India Ltd. an MFI that is engaged in urban space, currently in Mumbai, with strong focus on customer oriented business processes and impact. Meenal graduated from the University of Mumbai with Politics and Public Administration majors, holds a post graduate degree (MA in Political Science and International Relations) from the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and MPhil in Planning and Development from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. Shel has nearly two decades of experience in microfinance and livelihood promotion and research. She also has also written and co-authored publications.
Mr. Dibyajyoti Pattanaik is the Director of Bhubaneswar headquartered Annapurna Finance. Mr. Pattanaik has over 12 years of experience in microfinance, micro-enterprise development and development sector consulting. He has worked with Public and Development Sector institutions in various roles before joining Peoples’ Forum as Program Head & CFO in 2007. He played a crucial role in the transformation of mission Annapurna to Annapurna Finance Private Limited, which now operating as an NBFC-MFI across 10 states of India. He holds a Post Graduate in Management from Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India (EDII), Ahmedabad with specialisation in micro finance and micro enterprise management; he also holds a management certificate in microfinance from Boulder Institute of Management, USA.
Mr Mohammad Nooruddin Amin, Managing Director of Adhikar Micro finance Pvt. Ltd. working in the field of financial Inclusion in the Eastern Part of India, Odisha being the focus state. He is one of the early votaries of Micro finance movement. He innovated the concept of Money remittance for the migrant workers and also initiated the cooperative movement in the state of odisha. Mr Amin is experimenting the Micro finance for about two decades in extremely difficult conditions including left wing extremist affected districts of odisha and Chhatisgarh. He was a human rights activists studied Law from Utkal University, Bhubaneswar, studied Human Rights in Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, later on trained in Garmin Bank and subsequently in Harvard Business School, Boston, USA. He got the Ashoka Fellowship from Ashoka Trust, USA in 1996.
Mr. Udaya Kumar joined CreditAccess Grameen Ltd. as Chief Executive Officer in September 2010. He is a veteran in the financial services field with over 25 years of experience in the banking sector. He has previously worked with Corporation Bank for 10 years, ICICI Bank for over 12 years and Barclays Bank Plc. for three years.
Mr. Kumar has been exposed to Operations, Credit Management, Product development, Technology and Business Development in banking. His exposure to Rural, Agri and Micro Banking during his association with ICICI Bank made him set his personal goal to work in the Social Sector. Prior to joining CreditAccess Grameen Ltd., he was spearheading the commercial, payment and branch operations at Barclays Bank Plc, India. In the course of his career,Mr. Kumar has successfully imbibed technical, qualitative and managerial skills and been part of a team implementing process initiatives like Centralizing Operations, Process re-engineering, Six Sigma Quality Initiatives, Five-S principles for workplace management and implementation of ISO Standard in banking operations.
Mr. Udaya Kumar holds a Master's degree in commerce, CAIIB from the Indian Institute of Bankers and is also a graduate in Bank operations and technology from BAI, USA.
Mr. K M Vishwanathan is the CEO of M Power Micro Finance Pvt. Ltd. A BFSI PROFESSIONAL with an exposure of 32 years across NBFC , Banking and MFI lending industries. His experience in banking constitutes of 9 years in Karnataka Bank and 9 years with HDFC bank. Mr. Vishwanathan also has an experience of NBFC lending from his time in Cholamandalam Finance. In 2009 he promoted M Power Micro Finance and continues to run this venture as MD & CEO. Mr. Vishwanathan holds a Masters degree in Financial Management from Jamnalal Bajaj institute of Management Studies, Mumbai University.
Independent Board Members
Mr. Navin Kumar Maini retired as the Deputy Managing Director of SIDBI. He has more than three and a half decades of experience in the commercial and development banking in various facets of financing MSMEs & Large Corporate, Micro Credit and Core Business functions. He was also the Chief Executive Officer of the Credit Guarantee Fund Trust for Micro and Small Enterprises (CGTMSE), Mumbai. An alumnus of St. Stephens College, Delhi, Mr. Maini holds a Degree in Law from Delhi University. He is also a Postgraduate in Management from MDI and IIFT, besides being a Certified associate of Indian Institute of Banking & Finance.
Dr. Alok Misra has 25 years of professional experience in international development, rural finance ,microfinance,inclusive finance and research at both policy and implementation level. He started his career with India’s apex rural development bank (NABARD) in 1992. Dr. Misra has also been a part of the multi institutional task force (2003-2004) responsible for setting up India’s first online demutualized commodities exchange (NCDEX). In 2008, he shifted to a global microfinance rating, policy analysis and technical advisory agency. With his extensive career, Alok has provided consulting services to various multinational agencies such as ADB, UNCDF, World Bank, IFC, IDLO, GIZ, SDC and Rabo bank.
Currently, Dr. Misra is Professor and Head, School of Public Policy & Governance at Management Development Institute (MDI), Gurugram. He is a member of Inclusive Finance India Group of Advisors and member of Digital finance working group constituted by ITU, Geneva. He is closely associated with international initiatives like SPTF and Smart Campaign. Dr. Misra has written numerous articles and reports and has authored "Responsible Finance India Report".
Dr. Misra holds a PhD in Development Studies from Victoria university of Wellington, Master in Development Management (Gold Medallist) from Asian Institute of Management, Manila. He was awarded ADB-Government of Japan scholarship for MDM programme and NZAID scholarship for his PhD. He has been trained at Harvard Business School in "Strategic leadership for Microfinance" and was a Fellow, Fletcher Leadership Program for Financial Inclusion at Tufts University.
Mr. Desh Raj Dogra has 38 years of rich experience within the financial sector in the areas of banking and credit rating. He has maintained a high growth trajectory after taking over as acting Managing Director and made CARE the second largest rating agency.He has been instrumental in driving CARE Ratings to the position which it has attained in the last few years and has also taken the company to the bourses where it got listed in December 2012. Several initiatives have been successfully taken such as acquisition of Kalypto Risk Technologies (a risk management solutions company), opening of first global office in the Republic of Maldives, setting up the first credit rating agency in Mauritius, forging ties with other global rating agencies in creation of a global rating agency, ARC Ratings (with partners from Brazil, Malaysia, Portugal and South Africa).
Mr. Dogra also worked closely with the Ministry of Finance, Govt. of India, where CARE has prepared a dossier on the Indian Economy as well as white papers on both the equity and debt markets for the Ministry.
He has been awarded the prestigious IPE (The Institute of Public Enterprises, Hyderabad) Corporate Excellence award for contribution to this field in 2013 and has also received IPE BFSI Leader Award
Mr. Dogra holds a Bachelor’s and a Master’s degree in Agriculture from Himachal Pradesh University and MBA from Faculty of Management Studies, University of Delhi. He is a certified associate of the Indian Institute of Bankers.
MFIN – Bye-laws
Serial No. | Details | Issued On | Enclosures |
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1 | MFIN-Bye-laws | 26th May, 2015 | Download |
MFIN - FCRA
Serial No. | Details | Issued On | Enclosures |
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1 | MFIN has been granted its first project under FCRA. | 18th OCT, 2017 | Download |
Secretariat
Achla has been working with MFIN since April 2014 and is responsible for looking after the state and regional chapters. Prior to MFIN she has worked with Sa-Dhan, the Association of Community Development Finance Institutions for thirteen years where she contributed extensively for the growth of financial inclusion in urban and rural India across models, facilitated dialogue between different stakeholders-people, policy makers, service providers for better understanding of diverse models. She is a qualified Company Secretary and has also done her law from CCS University.
Sugandh’s heads the SRO vertical at MFIN. Before joining MFIN in 2011, she has worked with SEWA, ITC and ACTED across a range of development themes. She has completed her engineering from MNNIT, Allahabad and post graduate in Social policy from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).
Vaishali is a communication and marketing specialist with fifteen years of experience having worked both in the development and corporate sectors. She has worked in various capacities ranging from project management to communication and marketing strategist in various international organisations such as the Commonwealth Secretariat, the William J. Clinton Foundation, World Bank and the Deutsche Welthungerhilfe. Ms. Mishra has completed her Masters’ in International Journalism from the City, University of London, United Kingdom and her graduation from University of Delhi in Mass Communication and Media. She is also the holder of the British Commonwealth scholarship. At MFIN she heads the Communications and Marketing vertical.
Swetan Sagar has an MBA degree from Indian Institute of Forest Management (IIFM), Bhopal. He was earlier working with M-CRIL at the position of Chief Operating Officer and has over 18 years of experience in designing and leading multi-country programme evaluations in the financial inclusion space. His key areas of expertise include data analytics, market research, impact assessments, institutional assessments, capacity building of financial institutions and livelihood promotion institutions catering to the low-income segment.
Swetan has led many projects in the financial inclusion and enterprise development sectors across India and 15+ countries in the Asia and Africa region.
Amit is a financial inclusion professional with more than seven years of work experience. He has been working with MFIN since March,2015. Previously he has worked with BASIX & ICICI Lombard GIC Ltd. as a Product Manager for group health insurance (Micro Insurance product). His most recent association was with the World Bank Group in the sphere of Digital Financial services. Amit has completed his Post- Graduate Diploma in Rural Management from IRMA, Anand.
Devika has over seven years of professional experience within the microfinance and insurance sector having worked with SKS Microfinance, ICICI Lombard and most recently with M-CRIL. She has completed her Post - Graduate and Diploma in Rural Management (PGDRM) from IRMA, Anand.
Sheetal has been working with MFIN since April,2016. Prior to this she was managing commercialisation of ICAR Technologies and Capacity building of various stakeholders with Agrinnovate India Limited. She has three years of rich experience with ICICI Bank Ltd both in SME (asset side working capital funding of credit and non- credit facilities) and Retail Branch banking. Before Joining ICICI Bank, she was associated with BASIX within Bhartiya Samruddhi Finance Limited (BSFL), a NBFC dealing with microfinance and livelihood sustainability in Credit and Risk management team , where she also managed microfinance operations at the field level. Sheetal has completed her MBA in Rural Management from IRMA and is a B.Sc (Ag) Graduate from OUAT, BBSR.
Bhumika has joined MFIN as an AVP – Communications and Marketing. Bhumika has an experience of about 8 years working on assignments related to brand strategy and communications working across Media & Advertising agencies. She has an expertise of handling both ATL and BTL which includes Media Planning, Events, Experiential activities, Integrated Media Properties and social media marketing. She has worked with different agencies including Edelman India, Dentsu Aegis India Network, Group M Media India. Bhumika has completed her Post Graduation in Mass Communication from Amity University and graduated from Symbiosis Society’s College of Arts and Commerce specialising in English Literature.
Sankalp has been working with MFIN since Aug,2016 as a Manager, Grievance Redressal, within the SRO team. Prior to MFIN, he has worked with GIZ on rural insurance and agriculture value chain development projects. He has worked briefly with Yes Bank and Ananya Finance on internship assignments related to financial literacy, process mapping and loan product development. Sankalp has completed his Post-Graduate Diploma in Rural Management from IRMA, Anand and Master’s from TISS, Mumbai.
Jay serves as a Manager, Regulation and Surveillance for MFIN India. He has more than six years of experience from a diverse background in consultancy, CSR, NGO’s and Media. He has worked with, Mancer consulting services, Katha, Swayam Siddha and Daily News and Analysis in the past. Jay holds a master’s degree in International development from the University of Manchester. He has also studied journalism from Asian College of Journalism and Business Administration from Symbiosis Centre of Management Studies.
Jatinder is a financial inclusion professional with over eight years of experience in retail banking, microfinance, public policy research and agency banking space within and outside of India. Previously he has worked with SBI, HDFC Bank Ltd, MIX Inc and FINO PayTech Ltd. He has completed his Masters in Public policy from India and has attended a program in Public Policy Improvement offered by EPoD at Harvard University and Summer School Programme for Leadership in Development at Sanford School of Public Policy (Duke University Durham,N.C) and IIM Udaipur.
Mrinal is involved with advocacy, COC Compliance, public relations, members and external stakeholders engagement and regional level policy interventions with regulatory authorities and state apparatus. He has worked as an advocate at the Indore Bench of the High Court of Madhya Pradesh while also working with organizations having social and public centric activities. His area of engagement was youth and farmers.
Habib is a finance expert with twelve years of experience. Prior to MFIN, he was associated with Sa-Dhan (The Association of Community Development Finance Institutions) as a “Senior Executive-State coordinator”, responsible for the member services of North-East and Eastern region (viz. Assam, Manipur, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh).An MBA graduate from Bangalore University, he has also worked for six years in the retail finance industry .He has also been recognised as a “Smart Assessor” by the “Smart Campaign”.
Prior to MFIN, Suyog spent two years working at Microfinance Opportunities, International NGO working within the space of Financial Education and Capability Development of Low income household. His stint of three years at Financial Inclusion Network & Operations Ltd. (FINO), was to support and assist in building the capacity of field officers, general staff, mid-management & end consumers by developing innovative tools for training. Additionally he was responsible for designing Financial Literacy curriculum as well as delivering wide range of Financial Capacity Development solutions. In the past, he has worked with organizations like CMS Info Systems Pvt. Ltd & Hero Mind Mine where his portfolio included setting up training verticals for the frontline staff to Senior Management level. Suyog holds a Bachelors of Commerce & Masters in Management in Human Resources & Training from Mumbai University.
Kamalesh has over twelve years of rich experience. Prior to MFIN, Kamalesh has worked with Sa-Dhan (The Association of Community Development Finance Institutions) as Regional Manager responsible for the member services of South region (Viz Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka).
He has completed an online course of Social Enterprise and Microfinance Experts from University of Libre de Bruxelles.
Kamalesh has pursued his MBA Finance from National Institute of Business Management, BA in Economics from Annamalai University and software engineering from Computer Maintenance Corporation.
Piyush has 10+ Years of work experience with specialisation in Banking and Digital Financial services. He has worked extensively on digital financial services in India and Africa in different capacity as State lead, Strategic Alliance, Consultant and Senior Product Manager. Piyush has hands on experience and in depth understanding of payment system, like AePS, BBPS, E-KYC, India stack layers, mobile wallets, remittance business, card payments, Block chain, P2P and other emerging payment systems etc.
Before joining MFIN, he has worked with Barclays bank, Srei Sahaj, Oxigen, MicroSave, Tata Teleservices (mRUPEE), and Spice Digital. He is a member of AIMA and Volunteer at iSPIRT.
Piyush has done his MBA from Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar and Executive education from Columbia Business School with specialisation in Marketing.
Sharad holds an MBA degree in Finance and is also a law graduate. He brings with him about fifteen years of experience in financial management, grants management, statutory compliances and accounting practices. He also has an experience of managing HR and Administration functions in various International NGOs. Over the past 15 years Sharad has worked with eminent INGOs such as Oxfam, HIV / AIDS Alliance, and Nippon Foundation before joining MFIN. Sharad is managing the portfolios of Finance, HR and Admin in MFIN.
Shantanu has an experience of five years in financial management, statutory compliances, and accounting practices. He also has an experience of managing administrative functions in the past both within corporate & social sector. Over the past five years Shantanu has worked with LIFE (Livelihood Initiative of Empowerment), Tuli international Pvt ltd & Sanjeev Bhargava & Associates prior to MFIN. He is handling the portfolios of Finance, Accounts, and Admin in MFIN. Shantanu is a CA intern & has pursued his M.Com from IGNOU, Delhi.
Task Forces
MFIN has established a number of Task Forces for focused action on specific areas of activity that, from an overall industry standpoint, are deemed critical. The Task Forces comprise of representatives of member institutions who help drive specific initiatives with the support of the MFIN Secretariat.
Advocacy Task Force Members | |
---|---|
Name | Representative Organization |
Rakesh Dubey (Chair) | SV Creditline Pvt. Ltd. |
Devesh Sachdev | Fusion Microfinance Pvt. Ltd. |
Meenal Patole | Agora Microfinance India Ltd. |
Dibyajyoti Pattanaik | Annapurna Finance Pvt. Ltd. |
Manoj Nambiar | Arohan Financial Services Pvt. Ltd. |
Swetan Sagar (Member Secretary) | MFIN |
The Credit Bureau Task Force is responsible to develop the credit bureau eco system for the microfinance clients in the country. The members of the Task Force are as under:
Credit Bureau Task Force Members | |
---|---|
Name | Representative Organization |
K M Vishwanathan (Chair) | M Power Micro Finance Pvt. Ltd. |
Anujeet Varadkar | Svatantra Microfinance Pvt. Ltd. |
Veena Mankar (permanent invitee from EC) | Swadhaar FinServe Pvt. Ltd. |
Udaya Kumar | CreditAccess Grameen Ltd. |
Rakesh Dubey | SV Creditline Pvt. Ltd. |
Pushkar Parashar | Pahal Financial Services Pvt. Ltd. |
Swetan Sagar/Devika Misra (Member Secretary) | MFIN |
This Task Force will work towards development of a comprehensive framework of MFIN’s state level engagement and put in place an effective state level engagement model though state chapters and associations to deepen advocacy, communication and self-regulatory function of MFIN at state and district level.
State Chapters & Membership Task Force Members | |
---|---|
Name | Representative Organization |
Dibyajyoti Pattanaik (Chair) | Annapurna Finance Pvt. Ltd. |
Meenal Patole | Agora Microfinance India Ltd. |
Anand Rao | Chaitanya India Fin Credit Pvt. Ltd. |
Anup Singh | Sonata Finance Pvt Ltd |
Achla Savyasaachi (Member Secretary) | MFIN |
Small MFIs | |
---|---|
Name | Representative Organization |
Meenal Patole (Chair) | Agora Microfinance India Ltd. |
Anand Rao | Chaitanya India Fin Credit Pvt. Ltd. |
Satya Chakrapani | Shikhar Micrfinance Pvt. Ltd. |
Vineet Chatree | Svatntra Microfin Pvt.Ltd. |
Alok Biswas | Janakalyan Consultancy and Services Pvt. Ltd. |
Amit Mathur (Member Secretary) | MFIN |
External Engagement Task Force | |
---|---|
Name | Representative Organization |
Devesh Sachdev (Chair) | Fusion Microfinance Pvt. Ltd. |
Anand Rao | Chaitanya India Fin Credit Pvt. Ltd. |
Kartik Mehta | Pahal Financial Services Pvt. Ltd. |
Vineet Chatree | Svatntra Microfin Pvt.Ltd. |
Amin Mohammed | Adhikar Microfinance Pvt. Ltd. |
Achla Savyasaachi | MFIN |
Vaishali Mishra (Member Secretary) | (Member Secretary) - MFIN |