Validation of Data Platform and Impact Measurement Methodology to Increase Women’s Financial Access in India

Anshula Chowdhury
CEO & Founder of SAMETRICA

SAMETRICA is pleased to partner with JICA and Northern Arc on this exciting project. Using SAMETRICA's ESG and impact reporting platform, proprietary datasets, and expertise will enable the demonstration of real time impacts across JICA and Northern Arc's operations. The focus on gender-based impacts, alignment with various global ESG and impact frameworks, and ability to gather data directly from beneficiaries will represent a significant step forward in realizing the potential for ESG and impact reporting capabilities.

Ashish Mehrotra
Northern Arc Capital Limited

Northern Arc Capital Limited is a diversified financial services platform, established with the paramount objective of addressing the multifarious credit requirements of the underserved population. Our aim is to deliver efficient and dependable access to finance within our core sectors. We accomplish this through a comprehensive and multifaceted approach, leveraging not only our extensive network but also that of our esteemed financial institution partners, thereby ensuring a broader reach to customers across the vast expanse of India.
To realize this ambitious vision, we harness the power of our profound data insights spanning six sectors, underpinned by an impressive repository of over 66 million loan records. Our unwavering commitment to cutting-edge technology empowers us to offer a seamless credit flow experience to our end customers. At the forefront of this journey lies Nimbus, our proprietary debt platform, which plays a pivotal role in fostering the growth of credit within the Indian ecosystem. It facilitates end-to-end transactions and provides profound data analytics, elevating the efficiency and efficacy of our operations.

Reiko Wakatsuki
Officer, Office for Gender Equality and Poverty Reduction, Governance and Peacebuilding Department, JICA

JICA has set forth its Global Agenda for Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment, a business strategy to address issues in developing countries, and the Office for Gender Equality and Poverty Reduction is working to promote the economic empowerment of women in various ways toward a society in which everyone can fulfill their potential regardless of their gender. It has been seeking to visualize whether such efforts are truly contributing to the empowerment of individual women, and we are given the opportunity to participate in this PoC to visualize the impact of women's financial inclusion projects through NAC, one of the Private Sector Investment Finance (PSIF) Program. By collaborating with the Overseas Investment and Loan Division, NAC, and various people involved in this PoC, we aim to measure and visualize the impact of women's access to finance, income, and agency. We hope to apply this experience to future women's empowerment projects.

Yosuke Sato
Senior Deputy Director, Private Sector Investment Finance Division, JICA

This PoC is an effort to visualize the development impact of JICA's Private Sector Investment Finance (PSIF) Program. JICA's PSIF, in collaboration with the Office for Gender Equality and Poverty Reduction, is focusing on efforts to promote financial inclusion of vulnerable groups, including female, in developing countries. We feel it is important to learn more deeply (preferably in real time) about the actual impact of such projects to see if they are making a positive difference in the lives of individuals. Northern Arc Capital Limited is a digitally oriented financial institution that plans to further promote impact investment and we believe that they are the best partner for this PoC. We are pleased to be able to take the first step in this steady but potentially significant initiative together with the parties involved.