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ICICI Bank today said it is supporting one million women through its programme for self-help groups, which aims at empowering less privileged women to become self-reliant.
Self-help group (SHG) is a phrase used to describe a group of 10-20 less privileged women, primarily from rural and semi-urban areas, who pool their resources on a periodic basis and use the money on income generating activities such as grocery vending and handicrafts, among others.
As a first step, the bank opens a basic savings bank deposit account with cheque book facility for every SHG and subsequently disburses loans. The interest rate on these loans is around 14 per cent and the average loan size ₹1.7 lakh.
Chanda Kocchar, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of ICICI Bank said, “The initiative is to empower women and make them financially independent. Over the next year, we intend to double our reach and support to over two million women with cumulative loan disbursements of Rs 25,000 crore.”
In the last year-and-a-half, ICICI Bank has provided loans to 70,000 SHGs across 164 districts in seven States. The bank runs the programme through a dedicated pool of 550 employees who look after servicing of SHGs spread across Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala.
Kocchar said by March 2015 the bank would reach out to 2 million women SHGs.
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