The Srijan 2009 Emerging MFI Award is meant for new models and institutions that have already established some ground presence (in existence for atleast 6 months) but are still in early stages of growth.

This Award category will recognize:

• Financial institutions largely catering to the poor - urban or rural.
• Creation of social value and impact citing specific efforts and outputs that establish this.
• Innovative practices that enable them to create social impact in such early stages of growth.
• Methodologies that have helped scaling up of the institution.
• Institutional vision that goes beyond pure micro-lending to create wider impact and larger social returns
• Successful deployment of technology and partnerships for better outreach and impact.
• Client-centric approaches and methodologies.

Eligibility: Indian microfinance institutions involved on ground operations for less than three years and with a portfolio size of less than INR 50 Crores (approx. $10 Million) 

Over the last few years, we have seen microfinance getting increasingly mainstreamed. For an industry that is known for reaching out to the poor and the un-served, the financial performance of the institution alone cannot be sufficient to measure its success. The Srijan 2009 Client-centric Product/Service by an MFI Award aims to go back to the basics and recognize MFIs with stellar client-led practices. The Award is meant for both emerging as well as established MFIs. In some cases, MFIs may have forged effective partnerships with external agencies to tap the Bottom of the Pyramid (BoP) markets. Such partnerships enable MFIs to reach their clients with value-added affordable services offering the latter with livelihoods, better quality of life or accessible basic services in health, education and technology. These partnerships can be in various areas such as environment-friendly practices, consumer goods, technology-related, water and sanitation related, education related, amongst others. Such partnerships will be eligible for nominations under this category of awards.

This category will recognize:

• The core value proposition of the product/service/initiative and Innovation quotient of the product/service for the BoP market.
• How well the product/service affects the end client
• The social impact expected
• Practices that promote better inclusion of the under-served;
• Client-led practices within the institution and regular assessments of client needs

Eligibility: The award is meant for microfinance institutions in existence. Both not for profit & for-profit microfinance institutions are eligible to apply for the same.
 

The rapid growth of the financial inclusion space and its expansion to a wider constituency of providers and investors, and a broad range of instruments that can reach more clients, has been the positive confirmation of the impact that this segment is capable of. Expanding financial outreach is however a process of continual innovation. Advances in internet technology and new forms of payment mechanisms hold great promise.

This award will recognize innovations that have the capability to change the scope of financial inclusion. This award will celebrate innovations in technology that have the ability to:

• Bring about greater financial inclusion
• Potential to create social impact through greater financial inclusion
• Achieve ScalabilityEligibility: The technology that has been entered for the award should nominated by an organization that has on ground presence in the microfinance space and/or financial inclusion space.

Note: The technology product/process applied for could be in the ideation phase, incubation phase or the implementation phase.

The Srijan 2009 MFI Transparency Award will recognize initiatives and practices within an MFI that allows it to be more transparent and eventually fairer to its clients.

This award will recognize the need for MFIs to be more client-centric and transparent in its pricing, operations and practices. The nominations recognized on factors such as:

• Innovative practices to encourage transparency.
• Mechanisms adopted to build financial literacy of clients.•Mechanisms used to disseminate pricing information.
• Information reporting methodologies.

Eligibility: Indian microfinance institutions (both emerging & established) with at least 10,000 unique clients as on March 31, 2009.