Urban India is a unique economic and social environment. Ujjivan adopts the most effective microfinance and banking methodologies, and modifies them to be suitable for our target customers.

Group Lending Model

In the field of traditional microfinance Ujjivan is a Grameen replicator. The Grameen Model, developed by the Grameen Bank of Bangladesh, has been tried, tested and evolved over a period of almost 30 years and ensures that financing reaches each individual member of the group based on merit. The lender has a greater involvement in the loan process, which we believe is critical during the initiation phase. Grameen Bank has provided Ujjivan with technical guidance, training, and a resource person. This is the primary model we have adopted.

Ujjivan’s lending methodology consists of five poor women who together form a group. All Ujjivan customers go through the process outlined below.

Group Recognition Test: Ujjivan ensures that customers are aware of and understand:

Group guarantee/responsibility
Discipline
Products & services
Benefits
Policies & procedures

Center Meetings: Each center is typically comprised of five groups and has a mandatory weekly or fortnightly meeting. During these meetings, the following takes place:

Discussion of social/community issues

Commercial Microfinance Model

Ujjivan aims to enable its customers to move out of poverty. A critical step in this process will be assimilation into the traditional financial sector. As our customers graduate to larger loan sizes, the group guarantee mechanism of the Grameen Model begins to falter. At the same time, the customers from the higher economic segments will be viable candidates for individual lending products. To this end, we have introduced Individual Business Loan (IBL) – a loan product that is offered to existing Ujjivan customers who are ready to graduate from the group lending model.

The Commercial Microfinance Model serves the individual directly and is similar to modern retail banking. The target market is the economically active poor and lower middle class--those who are not served by the traditional financial sector, but are slightly above the lowest segment of the poverty pyramid.

Dodthaiyamma is involved in toy-making. Channapatna is famous for these toys. She is a mother of three.