Portfolio Partner Profile
Northern Arc Investments
Northern Arc Investments, an India-based private debt fund manager, is a mission driven organization that works to ensure that every individual and every enterprise in India has complete access to financial services.
Established as a subsidiary of Northern Arc Capital in 2014 , Northern Arc Investments strives to provide differentiated funding to high quality institutions helping them on lend to a wide set of financially underserved borrowers in India by tapping into new sets of investors from the domestic and international markets through a fully managed product. Northern Arc Investments invests to improve access to finance across microfinance, affordable housing, small business, vehicle finance, agribusiness lending and others sectors and currently manages over $260 million across seven funds.
The IFC estimates that the total debt demand by SMEs in India is over $500 billion, of which less than 20% is financed by the formal financial sector, including commercial banks. Similarly, according to the World Bank, India has the second-largest unbanked population in the world, at 190 million people. Furthermore, 60% of the unbanked population in India is represented by women.
To meet the large gap in the availability of financial services across many pockets in India, Northern Arc Investments latest fund, ‘Northern Arc India Impact Fund’ will on lend to non-bank financial companies (NBFCs) operating in the financial inclusion sector in India to achieve targeted outcomes including across the most high-need districts and in line with the sustainable development goals.
Microfinance
