Context: Recently, The Women Entrepreneurship Platform (WEP) and TransUnion CIBIL have created SEHER, a credit education initiative aimed at empowering female entrepreneurs in India. SEHER seeks to deliver financial literacy material and business skills, hence providing access to critical financial tools for growth and job creation.

About the SEHER Program

• It is a credit education initiative aimed at empowering women entrepreneurs in India by providing essential financial literacy content and business skills to women business owners.

• It facilitates better access to credit and financial resources for women-led businesses.

• It provides women entrepreneurs with knowledge about credit scores, loan eligibility, and financial planning.

• Importance: Reducing gender disparities (currently, only 7% of overall outstanding loans to MSMEs are granted to women-led businesses), and employment opportunities (around 20% MSMEs being women-owned).

• Objective: Address financial awareness as a major barrier to MSME development by educating women on financial topics such as CIBIL Rank and commercial credit reports.

Financial Literacy: Significance And Challenges

• Financial illiteracy is a serious obstacle to MSME growth.

• Goal: Empower women entrepreneurs by offering comprehensive assistance with entrepreneurship promotion, finance access, market linkages, training, mentoring, and company development services.

• Impact: Improve women's financial knowledge and abilities for running enterprises and attaining long-term growth, contributing to India's USD 5 trillion economy aim.

Statistics about the current state and potential of Women Entrepreneurs:

• India has 63 million MSMEs, 20.5% of which are owned by women, and they employ 27 million people.

• Growth Potential: Accelerating women's entrepreneurship might result in approximately 30 million new female-owned businesses and 150 to 170 million jobs.

• Loan Demand: Company loans for women increased 3.9 times between fiscal years 2019 and 2024, with women accounting for 38% of the 1.5 crore active company loans as of March 2024.

WEP And TransUnion CIBIL Initiatives

• Credit Education: SEHER will deliver individualized financial literacy information and tools to female entrepreneurs, supporting positive credit history and CIBIL scores.

• Partnership: Commitment to raising financial and credit awareness among female entrepreneurs in India.

About WEP

• Establishment: Incubated at NITI Aayog in 2018, the project will move to a public-private collaboration in 2022.

• Mission: Empower women entrepreneurs by addressing information asymmetry and providing assistance with entrepreneurship promotion, financial access, market linkages, training, mentoring, and company development services.

TransUnion CIBIL

• Role: Provides comprehensive financial solutions that promote economic opportunity and personal empowerment.

• Clientele: Serves India's banks, financial institutions, NBFCs, home finance companies, microfinance companies, and insurance companies.

Financing Women Collaborative (FWC)

• Second Meeting: Held in Mumbai to address access to credit for women entrepreneurs, including important stakeholders from NITI Aayog, RBI, Ministry of credit, MSME, SIDBI, SBI, and other organizations.

• Initiatives: New collaborations to support women entrepreneurs in Maharashtra, including a Memorandum of Understanding with the GroW Network, and the inauguration of the SEHER and Shine initiatives to increase finance preparedness and access for women-led firms.