Norwegian Microfinance Initiative invests USD 900,000 in Belstar

Microfinance Focus, May 13, 2010: Belstar Investment and Finance, a non-bank financial company based in Tamil Nadu, India has recently received USD 900, 000 (INR 4 crores approx) from the Frontier Fund of Norwegian Microfinance Initiative (NMI). With this investment NMI will have a seat on the Board of Directors of Belstar and will invest alongside the International Finance Corporation (IFC), Swedfund (the Swedish Development Finance Institution), and Aavishkaar Goodwell.

Belstar is affiliated with Hand-in-Hand, a large, well-established non-governmental organization (NGO) focused on livelihood promotion. Hand-in-Hand is converting its microfinance activities from NGO to for-profit status and is transferring its microfinance clients and infrastructure to Belstar. Belstar will focus on providing loans to low-income households that are unable to access such services from commercial banks.

The Managing Director of NMI, Richard Weingarten, said, “Belstar represents the first direct investment of the NMI Frontier Fund. This is an important milestone for NMI and we are pleased to support Belstar as it provides new funding to the more than 28,000 Self-Help Groups that have been established by Hand-in-Hand. These Groups already have more than 400,000 members, most of whom are poor women in rural India, so we expect that Belstar will be able to scale up its operations rather quickly.”