Swarna Pragati is India's first affordable rural housing microfinance company and aspires to build a society where everyone has a house to live in with dignity. The organisation aims to be the preferred provider of innovative financial solutions for housing in India, particularly to low-income households and women in rural and semi-urban areas.
Swarna Pragati understands that low-income households, particularly those in rural areas, seldom have clear legal land titles and may lack a traditional financial and credit history. Swarna Pragati makes financing more accessible to individuals in these areas by not requiring a title to guarantee a loan and by assessing the borrower's creditworthiness using a unique, non-traditional methodology.
ONI Impact Thesis
By providing micro-mortgage loans to rural low-income households, Swarna Pragati is developing a unique housing microfinance model to support them in both self-built new construction and for upgrading their existing homes. Leveraging paralegal documents of ownership, Swarna Pragati improves the availability of credit to low-income families who struggle to get loans from mainstream financiers owing to their lack of formal documentation and credit history.