South Indian women taking more bank loans

Hyderabad: As women become financially independent, they started understanding different investment options such as owning property, investing in business, buying the enterprise they are running and other schemes. Further, the schemes initiated by the Centre and State government are enabling women avail of several loans, observe experts. A recent report by CRIF highlighted that women borrowers from southern States have higher credit book size as compared to western and northern States. Telangana remains among top five States in the personal loan portfolio outstanding for women which increased by 18 per cent over the previous year and by sixper cent for home loans as of December 2020.

Satya Narayana, an official from the banking sector, on a condition of anonymity of his bank name, told Bizz Buzz: "Women are stepping ahead more than men which is a reason for hike in women borrowers, in specific, we receive applications of women for home loans because they want to extend their support to their male counterpart. Some of them come forward for education loans because they have aspirations to study abroad. Additional concessions provided by banks, schemes, other financial institutions offer are helping out women to avail for more loans."

The report further added that the number of women borrowers availing personal loans has increased from 6,008 in 2019 to 7,173 in 2020 in Telangana, and the number in Andhra Pradesh rose from 5,332 to 6,893. Auto loans also saw a rise, women in Telangana availing of such loans rose from 6,113 to 6,140whereas housing loans remain 40, 464 in 2019 to 43,754 in 2020.

"Women borrowers have increased because of various schemes like, PM SVANidhi for street vendors, unsecured loans, and awareness. Innovative thoughts are being explored by women like urban classes, beautician courses. Role of Fintech partnerships rise.

Skill developed programmes by government like We Hub, which is Telangana government'sinitiative for entrepreneurs, are helpful for budding women entrepreneurs. They also help women, who make several products such as sweets, pickles, etc, get bank credit as well. Women entrepreneurs can also get loans under their guidance. There is no problem with repayment at all," says Kanaka Durga, head (strategy &planning), MSME.

Women are increasingly coming forward to become entrepreneurs, adding to this, credit consciousness, self-monitoring credit score, progressive government initiatives are also further encouraging women to look for loans, observes Deepthi, CEO, We Hub.

"Mainly women have realized being jobseekers wouldn't work and recognized potential of having an enterprise is good, no more going job to job is sustainable, Evangelism about lot of schemes has been actively done in the State. At We Hub, when we started credit linkages drive though we were not gender biased, the finalized applications were 99 per cent of women, so awareness by different organisations is helping women avail for loans. Kind of support schemes by central govt as part of Atmanirbhar Bharat also helped women start on this journey. Owning property, creating assests, financial discipline, thinking of owning entrepreneurship, women are worried about whether they receive loan at right time and how much should they pay but never asked about the subsidies being provided," Deepthi Ravula, CEO, We Hub, Telangana's incubator to promote women entrepreneurship.