BSS
- Location: Bangalore, Karnataka, India
- Started microfinance operations: 1997
- Unitus Partnership Start Date: December 2004
- Clients when partnership began: 10,000
- Current clients served: 168,258
Background: Bharatha Swamukti Samsthe (BSS) was started at the request of Dr. Ramesh Bellamkonda by Mr. K.S. Nagendra in 1997. Dr. Bellamkonda is the Project Director (Chief Executive Officer) of BSS. Following a successful medical career in the U.S., Dr. Bellamkonda returned to India to devote himself full time to poverty alleviation work.
Leadership: BSS is led by Dr. Ramesh Bellamkonda, trustee and project director.
Poverty denies a human being the right to be the best that he or she was meant to be. Microcredit, although not a cure-all, is a great tool for massive poverty alleviation. It is wonderful to have an organization like Unitus, with a deep and profound commitment to large-scale poverty alleviation, become our partner. Combining the heart-felt desire of BSS to facilitate very large-scale, financially-sustainable poverty alleviation in India with a similar desire of Unitus to do the same globally makes wonderful things possible.
Product offerings and clientele: BSS is a group-based program of lending based on group recommendation (of new clients) and group guarantee (of one another’s loans). BSS offers microcredit loans to poor women throughout the urban and rural areas of India’s Karnataka state through a product called a “general loan.” Loans are primarily used for income-generating activities and improving individuals’ quality of life. All of BSS’s clients are women, and the majority is unable to read or write; they often work as agricultural laborers, and earn less than $9 per month. Clients use BSS’s credit products to start simple one-person businesses. The income from these businesses transforms their lives.
Highlights and growth strategy: After reaching the limit of its growth rate as a nonprofit, BSS, currently a Registered Public Charitable, intends to transform into a for-profit company by forming a non-bank finance company (NBFC). BSS hopes to attract equity like subordinated debt to build its capital base. An NBFC license will allow them to serve more clients by accessing larger amounts of capital through equity investments, and also allow them to eventually provide a regulated savings product to their clients. Unitus selected BSS because of their highly disciplined credit processes, strong internal operating systems, impressive growth, and nearly perfect repayment rates—performance that defies conventional wisdom within the traditional banking industry.
BSS’s goal is to eventually serve the entire state of Karnataka and then expand out to other parts of India. Their growth strategy focuses on deepening their penetration into present markets before expanding to new geographical locations. This strategy is designed to keep costs under control and to expand outreach in a commercially viable manner.
Meet a BSS client: With her loans from BSS, Uma started a thriving tailoring business. She now sends her two boys to school, and has purchased a larger home for her family. She says, “For the future, I have no fears. Only hope.”
