Spice Money launches new initiative for women entrepreneurs in rural India

By Leandra Monteiro

Spice Money, an Indian rural FinTech, has brought in an initiative to celebrate and salute the spirit of women entrepreneurship in rural India. This Women’s Day, the company has announced a gift of education for the women within the family of its 1 million-plus strong merchant community (Spice Money Adhikaris). It is a kamaal ka mauka for the Adhikaris to provide essential financial and digital literacy training to their wives and impart online education to their daughters, free of cost for a period of one year.

This Women’s day, Spice Money celebrates women nanopreneurs who have risen above the odds and have set upon a journey of achieving financial self-dependence and creating positive social impact, through its brand film. The film opens in a village, where a traveller needs to withdraw cash. He looks for an ATM, and people point him out to Bhanu’s shop. Upon reaching the shop, the unsuspecting traveller finds out that Bhanu, the protagonist, is a woman. This essentially breaks the stereotyping of only men being the breadwinners, especially in rural India. She works as a Spice Money Nari Adhikari and provides financial services to people in her community.

To ensure there are more women nanopreneurs like Bhanu, Spice Money has joined hands with an Edtech start-up Speed Labs, technology-based learning and practice platform, to educate women and girls within the family of its Adhikari network. For the wives of its Adhikaris, Spice Money brings in free training on financial and digital literacy so that they can support the Adhikari in his business and also create awareness about financial products in her village/ area. The women of tomorrow, the daughters of Adhikaris, will get a chance of advanced online education (school curriculum from standard 6 to 12 as well as college / professional degrees), free of cost for a period of one year, through this initiative. The learning and training modules will be imparted through Spice Money Academy, an industry-first digital training platform, to provide financial and digital education to rural nanopreneurs in India.

Sanjeev Kumar, Co-Founder & CEO, Spice Money, said, “Even though over the years, India’s female literacy has gone up, it still remains 22 percentage points behind the global average. Also, the gender disparity in education is substantial, with a difference of around 20 percentage points between male and female literacy rates. This lack of education among women prevents their participation in the workforce, hindering the economy from fulfilling its true potential. As a leader in the rural fintech category, we understand the importance of women being at the forefront of bringing in financial inclusivity. More women nanopreneurs at the helm of affairs would make more women comfortable in seeking out financial services, and in the long run, encourage them to be financially self-dependent. At Spice Money, we want to ensure that there is the greater active participation of women, as they get empowered. I am confident that this small step of imparting free education to female children, and free training to women in our Adhikari Network will be a meaningful stride forward in the direction of gender inclusivity, which in the long run, will have a positive impact on our economy.”

Vivek Varshney, Founder, Speedlabs, said, “SpeedLabs is committed towards best quality personalized learning for people across the country. This Partnership with Spice Money strengthens our shared vision towards making a change in Rural India by empowering the students with a top-quality tailor-made self-learning platform. This initiative will bring more women at the forefront of financial services in rural India.”