Rang De
Description
Rang De is a pioneering, web-based social initiative with a mission to provide cost effective microcredit to low income households in India. Through an online micro lending platform called RangDe.Org, it enables individuals to participate in microcredit by lending as little as Rs. 100. The problem Rang De is trying to address is inaccessibility of affordable finance to low income households for business and education. About 80% of the working poor are still dependent on local money lenders for credit who compel them to borrow at exorbitant interest rates and remain indebted for life. Since January 2008, Rang De has reached out to over 4542 entrepreneurs across 10 states in India by lending over Rs. 23 million.
What we deliver
We deliver affordable microcredit for business, micro-ventures and education. Rang De’s interest rates vary from 5% flat p.a. (9% APR) to 10 % flat p.a. (18% APR). These are significantly lower than the prevailing rates of at least 15% flat p.a. (28% APR).
Whom we deliver
After the loan has been disbursed to the entrepreneurs, Rang De conducts an evaluation to understand the impact of the loan. Social Investors also get to participate in either an audio evaluation or a field evaluation. In an audio evaluation Rang De connects social investors from across the country to a borrower in a remote village using the power of the mobile and the internet.
Why is the project unique?
We enable individuals to lend small sums of money to borrowers and help create a new form of capital: social capital. Since individuals are lending small sums of money in multiples of Rs.100, their appetite for risk is higher than that of a financial institution. The individual social investor is also more benevolent in case of genuine default. By removing the financial institution from the microcredit equation, Rang De is leveraging the peer-to-peer platform to raise social capital from middle class and upper middle class Indians. We offer microcredit loans at low interest rates. Our borrowers pay 8.5% flat p.a. on business loans and 5% flat p.a. on education loans. This is unique as a large majority of our borrowers are first time borrowers and would have never experienced microcredit thanks to the high cost of traditional microcredit 15% – 20 % flat p.a.
Roadmap
To make Rang De a role model in the usage of digital content for development. Barring a few exceptions historically ICT tools have not been used to their fullest extent for development in India. A way forward could be to form ICT incubation centers with the sole purpose of accelerating adoption of best in breed ICT technologies. Also it would be a key to define metrics to measure the success of any ICT tool based development project.
Contact
Ramakrishna NK
Rang De
Veekay Manor, Flat No 14, 3rd Floor, No.8, Gopalkrishna Road,
Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India
600017
URL/Website – http://www.rangde.org
