SAVE Microfinance is a New Delhi-based NBFC-MFI that lends to underserved women borrowers in rural and semi-urban India. The company has raised ₹40 crore in debt — ₹25 crore from Indian Overseas Bank and ₹15 crore from Northern Arc Capital — to expand its lending operations at a time when affordable formal credit is still patchy for many low-income households. SAVE Microfinance was established in 2017 by SAVE Solutions, the wider group founded in 2009 by Ajeet Kumar Singh, Pankaj Kumar, and Ajay Kumar Sinha. This isn’t a fresh lender trying to ride a trend. It comes out of a much older financial inclusion network.
What does SAVE Microfinance actually do?
SAVE Microfinance provides collateral-free microloans to women micro-entrepreneurs through the joint liability group, or JLG, model. In plain English, borrowers are organized into small groups. Loans are disbursed without hard collateral, and repayment discipline is supported through group accountability. The company’s core JLG loans typically run for 18 to 24 months. It has also added WASH loans for water and sanitation needs with shorter 12 to 18 month tenures.
For a customer, the workflow is pretty old-school in the best sense. Local field staff identify and organize eligible women borrowers. The company underwrites and disburses the loan. SAVE then continues with monitoring and collections. Its filings also show co-lending partnerships with Federal Bank and State Bank of India. So it isn’t only lending off its own balance sheet.
What SAVE is trying to remove from that process is friction. Its FY25 disclosures point to continued investment in digital infrastructure and credit analytics. They also show work on risk monitoring systems. So while the product is classic microfinance, the operating layer is increasingly about tighter underwriting, better servicing, and faster detection of stress. A lot of lenders have stumbled on that in the past 2 years.
The product set is getting broader too. Beyond standard income-generation loans, SAVE has signed off on WASH lending and introduced medical and health insurance support through Hospicash. That doesn’t turn it into a full-stack rural finance platform overnight. It does show a push to deepen wallet share with the same borrower base instead of only chasing raw loan growth.
Who founded SAVE Microfinance and how has it grown?
From Bihar roots to a regulated microfinance lender
The SAVE story starts before SAVE Microfinance itself. The parent group began in Gaya, Bihar, in 2009 as the Society for Advancement of Village Economy, with a goal of pulling underserved rural communities into the formal financial system. It later evolved into SAVE Solutions Private Limited, and the microfinance arm launched in 2017 to enter the NBFC-MFI business directly.
That parent history is a big part of the pitch. SAVE Solutions built one of India’s larger business correspondent networks, with more than 14,000 customer service points, and helped create alternative banking access across 30 states for SBI. So SAVE Microfinance didn’t begin with zero distribution. It started with field infrastructure already in place.
Why the founders fit this market
Ajeet Kumar Singh, the group’s managing director and co-founder, has spent more than 16 years in financial services and banking, with work spanning rural and urban markets, business correspondent networks, alternate banking channels, and microfinance. He holds a degree in humanities and has been central to SAVE’s network development, market expansion, and IT infrastructure build-out.
Ajay Kumar Sinha brings over 22 years of experience across banking, insurance, healthcare, and the NGO sector. Pankaj Kumar, another co-founder, has led financial and operational management around alternative banking channels and system design. Together, the founders don’t read like consumer fintech operators trying rural credit for the first time. They look more like distribution-first builders who worked backward into lending.
Traction, fundraising, and the rivals that matter
SAVE Microfinance has already reached scale, though it’s still far smaller than the category leaders. In FY24, it had 437,127 borrowers, 242 branches, operations in 104 districts, and AUM of ₹1,179.6 crore. Its FY25 management discussion pushed that footprint to 338 branches across 15 states and 175 districts, with 373,479 borrowers and AUM of ₹1,174.9 crore. Profitability got squeezed hard. PAT fell from ₹12.17 crore in FY24 to ₹0.12 crore in FY25.
That gives the new debt raise more weight. The ₹40 crore facility is split between Indian Overseas Bank and Northern Arc Capital, and the company will use the money to expand microfinance operations, reach more customers, and meet demand for affordable credit. SAVE is also exploring more borrowing under CGSMFI-2.0. That could diversify its funding base further.
Competition is real. SAVE operates in a field dominated by larger NBFC-MFIs and adjacent lenders such as CreditAccess Grameen, Arohan Financial Services, Fusion Finance, Satin Creditcare, Annapurna, and Belstar. CreditAccess Grameen alone had 4.4 million borrowers and ₹26,566 crore in AUM as of December 2025. SAVE’s edge isn’t scale. It’s local distribution, a parent network built through business correspondent operations, and a product mix that’s broadening beyond plain-vanilla group loans. The incumbent alternative, meanwhile, is still a messy mix of moneylenders, self-help groups, and slow-moving bank branches.
Why does SAVE Microfinance's ₹40 crore debt raise matter?
For a microfinance lender, debt isn’t just financing. It’s inventory. If it can’t keep borrowing at workable terms, it can’t keep lending at scale. That’s why backing from Indian Overseas Bank and Northern Arc matters more than the headline number suggests. It tells the market that institutional lenders still see SAVE as bankable even in a tougher credit cycle.
The timing is sharp. SAVE has already built a sizable branch network and borrower base, but its FY25 numbers show how tricky the current environment is. Growth in branches didn’t translate into stronger profits, which means the company now needs discipline as much as expansion capital. This debt can help it grow. It also buys breathing room to keep underwriting tight instead of chasing volume blindly.
The company’s own language makes the thesis clear. CFO Pintu Kumar Singh said the funding reflects lender confidence in SAVE’s “financial discipline, portfolio quality, and governance standards.” Managing director and co-founder Ajeet Kumar Singh called financial inclusion “a powerful catalyst for social and economic transformation.” In microfinance, governance and collections are the whole story. If those slip, nothing else really matters.
How big is the Indian microfinance market right now?
This is still a huge market. As of March 31, 2025, India’s microfinance industry served 7.8 crore unique borrowers through 13.3 crore loan accounts. The broader universe portfolio stood at about ₹3.35 lakh crore, while NBFC-MFIs alone accounted for ₹1.47 lakh crore in AUM.
Geography explains a lot of the opportunity. East and North-East India held 33% of NBFC-MFI portfolio by March 2025, and Bihar was the single largest state by portfolio outstanding. That’s useful context for SAVE, because the group’s roots are in Bihar and its operating DNA has always been strongest in underbanked rural markets.
But this sector isn’t cruising. By December 31, 2025, the total microfinance loan portfolio had dropped to ₹3.14 lakh crore, down 18.3% year on year, as lenders tightened and stress worked its way through the system. So the market is big. It’s also in a phase where better risk controls, cleaner funding lines, and smarter servicing matter a lot more than chest-thumping growth numbers.
The takeaway for SAVE Microfinance
SAVE Microfinance isn’t the biggest name in Indian lending. That’s why this round is worth watching. A ₹40 crore debt raise won’t change the pecking order overnight, but it does give SAVE Microfinance fresh room to lend, widen outreach, and test whether its distribution-heavy model can keep working in a stricter market. The next thing to watch is simple: can it turn new capital and CGSMFI-linked borrowing into healthier portfolio growth, not just a larger book?
Read how Wheelocity raised over ₹82 Cr in an ongoing funding round to expand its hybrid rural commerce network, combining EV-powered last-mile delivery, farmer-linked sourcing, and digital retail infrastructure for India's villages.
FAQ
- What funding did SAVE Microfinance raise? SAVE Microfinance raised ₹40 crore in debt funding. The facility includes ₹25 crore from Indian Overseas Bank and ₹15 crore from Northern Arc Capital, and the company plans to use it to expand lending operations and reach more borrowers across its operating markets.
- How does SAVE Microfinance work? SAVE Microfinance uses the joint liability group model to lend to women micro-entrepreneurs without traditional collateral. Its core loans usually run for 18 to 24 months. It has also added WASH loans with 12 to 18 month tenures, plus co-lending relationships that help expand credit supply.
- Who founded SAVE Microfinance? SAVE Microfinance was established in 2017 by SAVE Solutions, the wider group founded in 2009 in Gaya, Bihar. The founding team includes Ajeet Kumar Singh, Pankaj Kumar, and Ajay Kumar Sinha, all of whom come from deep operational experience in financial services, rural distribution, and alternative banking channels.
- Is SAVE Microfinance a bank or an NBFC-MFI? It’s an NBFC-MFI, not a bank. That means it’s a non-bank finance company focused on microfinance lending, operating in the same broad category as specialist lenders such as CreditAccess Grameen, Arohan, Fusion Finance, and Satin Creditcare.
