ASA International India Microfinance raises EUR 10 Mn foreign currency funding from German Impact Investor - Invest in Visions (IIV).

ASA International India Microfinance secures EUR 10 Mn foreign currency funding from German Impact Investor - Invest in Visions (IIV). IIV which manages the IIV Mikrofinanzfonds, an impact investment fund was advised by Agents for Impact for this transaction. The deal marks the first foreign currency transaction under the ECB Route for ASAI India Microfinance. The facility was structured to disburse in EUR and then hedged completely into INR eliminating any foreign currency risk for ASAI’s balance sheet. The purpose of the funds is to on-lend to microfinance borrowers, in line with IIV’s fund mandate. Vivriti Capital served as the External Advisor to ASA International India.

 Commenting on the deal, Dr Andrij Fetsun, CEO of AFI said, “We are all excited to see the first fruitful results after conducting long and intensive research on the Indian market. It was of utmost importance for us to see that ASA International India does not only display strong financial key performance indicators and credit rating, but that it also ranked among the best in terms of sustainability with regards to the United Nations´ Sustainable Development Goals.” 

Agents for Impact is a Research Agency, which creates structures that enable sustainable investments, render impact measurable and comparable and make financial inclusion structurally and legally possible for investors. AFI’s goal is to create impact, which is fair, sustainable and responsible. AFI offers its impact measurement services through its AFISAS^© tool to investors for proving the sustainability of their assets and to NBFCs to prove the sustainability of their assets and hence secure funding.

Regarding this landmark transaction, Garima Gupta, Head Offshore Investor coverage for Vivriti Capital said, “We are proud to have worked with both ASAI India as its Adviser, and with Agents for Impact, who is conducting impact research for IIV on this transaction.”

ASA International India, promoted by ASA International is an NBFC-MFI based out of Kolkata. The company currently operates out of seven states and has over 1.1 Mn active borrowers belonging to low income households in rural and urban areas.

Speaking on the occasion, CEO ASAI India said, “ We are extremely proud of the fact that ASAI India is the first NBFC-MFI in India to get a loan through the ECB route from IIV Mikrofinanzfonds. We would like to thank Vivriti Capital and the Agents for Impact team for their support in getting this deal through”.

The deal is especially significant in the current domestic credit environment where risk aversion on part of lenders is creating liquidity concerns. ECB which has been gaining traction with NBFC-MFIs over the last one year can serve as an effective tool to diversify the borrowing profile of NBFCs.

 About Invest in Visions: Invest in Visions GmbH was founded by Edda Schröder in 2006 with the vision of offering institutional and retail investors access to impact investments. The IIV Mikrofinanzfonds is the first fund of this asset class in Germany for retail and institutional investors.

 About Vivriti Capital: Vivriti Capital’s online debt marketplace- CredAvenue helps connect debt issuers and investors through a fully automated and digitized platform. The platform has thus far facilitated over INR 20,000 Cr of funding through 950+ fixed income transactions. The company was set up in June 2017 by Gaurav Kumar and Vineet Sukumar.