Over the past few years, our team collectively observed various instances about the lack of financial planning in rural Indian households, and these observations acted like triggers to catalyze our interest in ‘finance‘ and its power to empower. Two years ago, some of the members of our team had recognized the problem of the pertinent lack of financial literacy in the youth of India. Back then, they had launched an initiative called High School Investors to increase financial literacy and to enable high school students with useful tools and practices for financing their higher education.
But, as keen observers and volunteers of High School Investors, our co-founders realized that the same solution could be used to empower the underprivileged people, and we realized that the rural population of India faces a much more significant problem of financial planning. We started conducting in-depth research into this problem by reading up on surveys, blogs, reports & news articles. We concluded that the rural population of India suffers from a lack of financial literacy and barely has any personal financial knowledge. They even lack access to essential financial services and have almost no credit availability. It was then when we embarked on the journey to find an effective solution to this critical issue, from which India is currently suffering.
It was shocking to know that only about 1% of the rural people in India invest in financial instruments, and only 0.23% is aware of SIPs and Mutual Funds. This statistic is what was the “lightbulb” moment, and this is how Rural Invest was born. We initially started to target maids & drivers working in our neighborhood and started educating them & facilitating their investments into Mutual funds. Initially, they found it hard to believe that by merely saving small amounts like Rs. 500-700 per month through micro-SIPs (Systematic Investment Plans), they will be able to ensure financial stability for their families. Now, Rural Invest is ready for nation-wide impact creation through its ease-to-use & intuitive mobile application, which processes E-KYCs in under 5 minutes & allows people to invest in Micro-SIPs. We aim to provide financial awareness to the rural population of India and help them access liquidity in times of distress, making them financially independent & potentially improving their livelihood.