SwadhaarFinServe (Mumbai) focuses on providing services to the economically active poor in the city of Mumbai and other urban areas.

As a pioneer in providing individual lending loans within the Indian context, Swadhaar is proving that microcredit can be efficiently delivered even in the most desperate urban conditions. Mumbai has one of the largest populations of urban poor. Success here will reach millions of clients and create a new lending methodology applicable to other mega-cities. Swadhaar FinServe was set up by the promoters of Swadhaar FinAccess, its associate non-profit company.

Veena Mankar

Veena Mankar has over 30 years of experience in development and commercial banking having started her career with the erstwhile project finance institution, ICICI Ltd (now ICICI Bank Ltd). During her career she has been an independent consultant to International Banks, was the country representative of WestLB, Germany in India and the founding Managing Director of a Non Banking Financial Company offering factoring, which established itself as India’s largest independent factoring company.

After a successful career in the mainstream financial sector, she became an entrepreneur
in the microfinance field, with the objective of using her professional expertise to develop a scaleable model for urban microfinance. She is one of the two founders of Swadhaar FinAccess and Swadhaar FinServe Private Limited.

She has a BA in Economics followed by a post graduation in Business Administration from the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad.