Aye Finance’s Rating upgraded to A- (Stable Outlook)

Aye Finance announced that India Ratings and Research has upgraded its Long Term issuer rating to A- (Stable Outlook) from BBB+.

Aye Finance is India’s leading fintech lender and has been addressing the funding needs of the credit-starved micro-enterprise sector since its inception in 2014. It has offered customized credit solutions to over 2,00,000 micro-enterprises since then and has an asset book of over INR 1750 crores.

India Rating & Research is India’s most respectable credit rating agency committed to providing India’s credit market accurate, timely and prospective credit opinion.

The rating agency in its press release dated 16 March 2020 said it has upgraded Aye’s rating because of its increased capital base through fundraise in March last year, Aye’s adequate scale of operations, retail granular loan book, quality and professional depth of its leadership team, moderate leverage, stable asset quality, and funding profile, with a focus on analytics to drive credit underwriting through a cluster-based lending approach.

The rating also takes into consideration the marquee investors offering strategic oversight, driving governance structure along with supporting operational efficiency by providing analytical and technological expertise to scale the business in the medium term.

Commenting on the upgraded rankings, Sanjay Sharma, Managing Director of Aye Finance said, “Aye’s mission is to ease the flow of funds to the thriving micro-enterprise sector and this rating upgrade will support us in realizing our mission by allowing us to raise funds through diversified channels at far more competitive rates.

And this upgrade comes at a time when the NBFC Sector is seeing a downturn further validating the industry’s faith in our business model and in our team.”

Aye has reached the leading lender to the MSME Segment position by effectively leveraging technology and creating a seamless lending experience for its target customer base.

After successfully using its proprietary “Cluster-Based Credit Assessment” methodology for risk assessment of over two lacs micro-enterprises, the lender has now deployed Artificial Intelligence Algorithms to bring improved efficiencies in its origination, repeat loans, and collection processes.

Global leaders in the investment and impact sectors have been supporting Aye since its inception, in its mission to improve the financial inclusion of the grassroots businesses in India.

The lender is equity funded by CapitalG, SAIF Partners, Falcon Edge, LGT, A91 Partners, and MAJ Invest, and has debt lines from FMO, BlueOrchard, responsibility, SBI, ICICI Bank, HDFC and many others. Aye Finance is one of the 278 systemically important NBFCs of India.