Aye Finance, the only scaled pan-India operator providing unsecured small-ticket business loans to a major credit-starved micro-enterprise category, announced that their loan book rose by 56% in 2022-23. After two years of limited expansion due to the pandemic, credit uptake among micro enterprises increased dramatically in 2022-23. Aye was able to meet this demand from unorganised firms and assist them in getting back on their feet following the covid interruption. Aye had an AUM of INR 2700 cores and over 3,00,000 active clients as of March 31, 2023.
With its innovative cluster-based credit appraisal approach and properly digitised phygital model, the fintech lender has been making tremendous gains in revolutionising micro enterprise financing. Since its establishment, Aye has offered over INR 7000 crores in cheap and personalised business loans to over 6 lac micro firms, enabling their integration into the formal sector.
Aye is producing results that are consistent with a double bottom line: on the one hand, developing an efficient lucrative and scalable business, and on the other, bringing about a revolutionary social impact by addressing the discrepancy in economic privileges of this excluded sector. And the year 2022-23 proved to be a watershed moment for Aye Finance. For the fiscal year ending March 31, 2023, the MSME lender reported a profit after tax of Rs 60 crores and revenue of Rs 630 crores.
Commenting on Aye’s performance, Navroz D. Udwadia, Co-founder and Partner, Alpha Wave Global, Aye Finance’s equity partner said “We’ve been early believers of Sanjay and his leadership of Aye Finance since 2018. Aye is serving the small SMEs who are deprived of credit from traditional financial institutions and building real moats – a differentiated cluster-based customer acquisition process and disciplined underwriting / risk management process. Aye’s investments in these processes are bearing fruit – in FY24, Aye is on track to generate best-in-class AUM growth and profitability in its entire peer group. We remain excited about Aye’s prospects as it continues to scale, profitably”
Sanjay Sharma, Managing Director Aye Finance said “After the difficult Covid impacted years, FY23 came as an opportunity to get back to high levels of performance. It gives me immense pride to report that my team has used the opportunity and pushed the envelope to deliver exceptional results. We grew our loan book by 57 percent over the year to INR 2728 crores and added over one lac active customers during the year growing our base from 2,00,000 to over 3,00,000 customers. The credit quality has returned back to pre Covid levels and profitability has never been better. We are now poised for another promising phase and will expand our client base with profitability and positive social impact in FY24”
Aye is setting new norms for inclusively building a quality loan portfolio and delivering value for its clients, employees, investors, and other stakeholders. Elevation Capital, CapitalG, Alpha Wave Global, Light Rock, A91 Partners, and MAJ Invest are among the lenders that have funded Aye in its objective to create an inclusive ecosystem for India’s micro entrepreneurs.
