Financial year 20-21 was an outstanding year for the company. The entire team rallied behind the mission of the company which is improving the lives of low-income families when our customers needed us the most in a pandemic year. We prioritized meeting the credit needs of our existing customers before acquiring new customers. We made changes in our processes to meet our customers’ multiple credit needs at different times of the year. We ensured that we are agile to meet our customers’ urgent requirements. We also dropped our interest rates during the year to one of the lowest interest rates in the industry.

The entire team did an outstanding job in a difficult year. All staff was back at work as soon as lockdowns were lifted. All field staff was on the ground serving customers in spite of apprehensions of covid. We quickly moved to provide customers with a digital collection option. Our collections bounced back much earlier than expected due to our proactiveness of meeting customers early and starting disbursals early. We improved the efficiency of our operations through cost-cutting exercises and productivity improvements during the year. The second COVID wave tested our team even more. The entire team was on the ground focusing on serving our customers in spite of many employees facing personal challenges.

The actions we took were reflected in our performance. Our loan book grew to INR 1388 Cr., a 58 percent growth rate. We grew our customer base by a healthy 20 percent although our primary focus was serving our existing customers. Our profit after tax grew by four times to 20 Cr. Our collection efficiencies were among the best in the industry and have also provided provisions on a conservative basis.

In the financial year, 2021 we started making technology investments required for our rapid growth in the coming years. Technology investments will help us in three areas, serve our customers better: faster with more flexibility; improve our internal controls and improve our productivity. The benefits of the investments we have made should start flowing from next year. We are also rapidly expanding geographically with the presence of the company going up from five in FY 19-20 to seven in FY20-21 to 10 in FY 22.