- World Bank, UN Women, and Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) have collaborated to launch a new social impact bonds exclusively for women, called Women’s Livelihood Bonds (WLBs), with an initial corpus of Rs 300 crore.
- The proposed bond will enable individual women entrepreneurs in sectors like food processing, agriculture, services and small units to borrow around Rs 50,000 to Rs 3 lakh at an annual interest rate of around 13-14 per cent or less.
- The bonds, which will have a tenure of five years, will be launched by SIDBI with the support of World Bank and UN Women.
- SIDBI will act as the financial intermediary and channel funds raised to women entrepreneurs through participating financial intermediaries like banks, NBFCs or microfinance institutions.
- The WLBs will be unsecured, unlisted bonds and offer fixed coupon rate of 3 per cent per annum to bond investors.
