Home Credit India Launches Inaugural Sustainability Country Card

Home Credit India (HCIN), a local arm of the international consumer finance provider, today released its inaugural Sustainability Country Card, codifying ESG principles into the business. The document sets out key sustainability pillars such as Financial Inclusion or inclusive lending, Financial Literacy, Digital Empowerment and Sustainable Communities, which together, help HCIN as a responsible lender to serve the customers, communities and all stakeholders.

HCIN has been working on enabling credit penetration in India since entering the local market in 2012. Since then, the focus has been on responsible delivery of trusted financial products and services to the underserved population, while promoting financial and digital literacy to drive a responsible borrowing culture in the wider society. The country card is aligned with the United Nations Sustainability Goals – No Poverty, Decent Work and Economic Growth, Responsible Consumption & Production, Gender Equality, Good Health & Wellbeing.

Elaborating on the first Sustainability Country Card, Mr. Ondrej Kubik, Chief Executive Officer, Home Credit India, said, “For us ESG or Sustainability has always meant the way of doing and operating business that creates value for all stakeholders. Sustainability is woven into our DNA. With a purpose to empower people to live the life they want now, financial inclusion or inclusive lending and financial literacy are a foundation that can provide access to affordable credit to underserved communities and in turn help them develop a positive credit history, which improves their access to formal financial system. Our sustainability pillars along with creating resilient communities is our way of contributing to nation-building.”

Furthering its customer-centric approach, HCIN has recently and successfully embraced digital transformation, and has fast expanded its digital presence and offerings since 2020, to build an omni-channel connection with products and services. Today, both HCIN customers and merchants/retail partners can deliver seamless and paperless onboarding via the HCIN app or website. Half of HCIN customers now follow a complete online journey, and metrics show these numbers are growing each day.

Key 2021 report highlights at a glance:

· Borrowers Served

>65% increase in number of borrowers served – from 8.5MM in 2018 to 14.2MM in 2021

· Serving the underserved

40% of Home Credit customers were first-time borrowers

· Financial literacy

3Mn people benefited from HCIN financial literacy initiative (Paise ki Paathshala) and social media engagements in 2021

· Digital lending

Growth from 2% in 2018 to 30% in 2021 (% of personal loans through digital channels)

· Zero interest

45% of our consumer loans have 0% interest, thanks to partnerships with retailers and manufacturers

· PoS touchpoints

50,000+ point-of-sale touchpoints across 625 cities for customers

The Country Card is published alongside the Home Credit Group annual Sustainability Report – set to be released on an annual basis, and was prepared in reference to the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Standards, to industry leading benchmarks such as the Standards and Practices for Responsible Inclusive Finance by the Social Performance Task Force (SPTF), Principles for Responsible Banking by the United Nations Environment Program Finance Initiative (UNEPFI) and Materiality Finder by the Sustainable Accounting Standards Board (SASB).