Leading Mid Corporates 2020

Leading Mid-Corporates of India 2020 E - 25 Experts' View Please provide a brief background of the company, its operations and product offerings. Established in 2010, Fusion Microfinance is registered with RBI, as a rural focused NBFC MFI which started operations in 2010 to create opportunities for the unbanked and underserved women entrepreneurs. The Company works diligently to financially empower women entrepreneurs belonging to the economically and socially deprived sections of the society operating with humility, simplicity and transparency. Being a responsible organization, Fusion operates on a high governance model and enables its Clients to transform the quality of their lives. With a strong team of over 5500 employees, Fusion Microfinance has presence in over 50,000 villages with an extensive network of 600+ branches spread across 283 districts in 18 states of India. With an AUM of 33.5 bn, Fusion Microfinance is the youngest in the top 10 Microfinance Institutions of India, serving more than 1.85 mn households. The company offers a broad spectrum Fusion Microfinance Private Limited of financial products operating on the JLG model and runs Digital and Financial Literacy Programs. Kindly take us through your journey. What have been the key milestones of the company in recent years? The last decade has been a roller coaster ridewithmanydisruptionsand challenges faced by India’s economy. Microfinance sector in particular has gone through challenges like AP crisis, Demonetization, NBFC liquidity crisis and now COVID-19. Fusion started its journey just before the biggest crisis faced by the sector and has successfully grown into a significant player in the 10 years due to its client centric approach and support of shareholders and other stakeholders. In our debut year, FusionMicrofinance got the 66th ranking out of top 100 companies featuring in the ‘Great Places to Work’ India – 2020, ‘Best Workplace in MFI’ 2020 by Great Places to Work Institute and The Economic Times. We enjoy bank loan ratings of A- (CRISIL, ICRA) and MFI 1 (CARE).We also bagged a host of other awards like the ‘Financial Inclusion and Literacy Leadership Award 2020’, attracted marquee investor - Warburg Pincus, a leading global private equity firm, ‘PMI Project of the Year Award’ 2018, Best Usage of ICT in Rural Development’ from Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad (Hon'ble Union Minister) in 2017 and ‘Best MFI of the Year 2014 Award’ by ACCESS. How has the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the business? What are the strategies that the company has deployed to tide over this crisis? Covid-19 has been a major disruptor of recent times with unprecedented impact on businesses. Microfinance Sector is largely human driven and physical meetings got impacted in the lockdown. However, Fusion’s customer centric approach and cloud-based technological readiness has enabled us to quickly adapt and implement changes in our operations as per the needs of today’s times. We extended moratorium to our Clients as per the RBI guidelines. We altered the mode of center meetings and group formation meetings to suit the new normal, with higher rigor on cashless disbursements. Providing an early date complete compensation is our way of showing compassion and fostering community spirit in our people. There have been zero retrenchments and our people got the flexibility to Work from Home. In this way, Fusion workplace culture fosters an environment where employees feel connected and contribute to achieve. We lived up to our brand values by being prudent and proactive in our communication with all key stakeholders. We are coming out strongly with our collections and disbursements back on track and we are confident of growing in double digit this year. We look forward to be the ‘Lender of Choice’ for Rural India. Devesh Sachdev MD & CEO Vice Chairman – MFIN India With nearly 80% of our clients engaged in essential services, we expect rural India to provide the next growth impetus as we look forward to be the ‘Lender of Choice’ for Rural India. Dun & Bradstreet