Sitara is an affordable housing finance company offering small-ticket loans to low-income women borrowers in urban India for home improvement/construction. It primarily serves borrowers who are informally employed and who live in informal settlements, often with little or no formal title documentation. Lack of property titles locks these households out of the formal housing finance market and makes it hard for them to access basic services, government schemes, and even banking services, all of which require proper documentation. Sitara services this underserved segment by unlocking formal capital for households to lead more meaningful, economically empowered lives.
Sitara works closely with families on the ground to assess their informal incomes and informal documents, often working with less than perfect title documents to underwrite its loans. By assessing a range of documentation from registered titles to authorisation certificates to utility bills, it works with the consumers to facilitate upgradation, modification, and formalisation of the available documents through a progressive tenure model to balance the risk of lending to this consumer base.
ONI Impact Thesis
By providing small-ticket loans to low-income women borrowers against properties with informal titled documentation, Sitara is unlocking capital to underserved segments for home construction and improvement. By facilitating upgradation, modification and formalisation of the available documents through a progressive tenure model to balance the risk of lending to this customer base, Sitara is pioneering a viable business model in the affordable housing finance sector.