Sa-Dhan Welcomes New Board Members

PNN
New Delhi [India], June 21: The 27th Annual General Body meeting of Sa-Dhan, an RBI recognized Self - Regulatory Organisation (SRO) and an association of Microfinance and Impact Finance Institutions, was held at Bengaluru on 19th June 2025. More than 100 members participated in the AGM. The meeting approved the financial statements of Sa-Dhan for the last FY 2024-25 and approved the budget for the FY 2025-26. The AGM also elected five members to the Governing Body of Sa-Dhan, against the vacancies arrived during the year.
The new members elected to the Board of Sa-Dhan are Mr K Paul Thomas, Managing Director and CEO of ESAF Small Finance Bank, Mr G Kiran Kumar of Swamaan Financial Services, Mr Rahul Gupta of Avanti Finance, Mr Jagadish Ramadugu of Pragati Finserv, Mr Pravin Thigale of Fingel Management Services.
Consequent to the election of the new members, Sa-Dhan Board reconstituted with the same set of office bearers, Mr Paul Thomas as the Chairperson, Mr Sadaf Sayeed MD & CEO, Muthoot Microfin and Mr Mukul Jaiswal, MD Cashphor as co-chairs and Dr. Vivekananda Salimath, Chair IDF as Treasurer.
Welcoming the new board of Sa-Dhan Mr Jiji Mammen, Executive Director and CEO of Sa-Dhan said, "We are happy to see young and eminent members of the fraternity joining the Board. I am sure, a good mix of experience and youthfulness and modernity and tradition added to the present will take Sa-Dhan to greater heights. The board after its constitutions decided on encouraging innovation and newer product in microfinance space with a view to see the present crisis is addressed with long term solution"
Mr K. Paul Thomas, Chairperson of Sa-Dhan and MD and CEO of ESAF Small Finance Bank said, "The distinguished team of new and experienced leaders will bolster the mission to foster inclusive, responsible and impactful microfinance across the country. As a self-regulatory organisation, Sa-Dhan will usher in an era of innovation in financial inclusion through micro-financing. The goal of Sa-Dhan is to develop, promote and support eco-systems of impact financing institutions, which enable inclusive growth, equity, gender and sustainable development in the society. The Board of Sa-Dhan will work to attain it's objectives".
Sa-Dhan's board is composed of both elected and independent members, representing various roles within the microfinance and impact finance sectors.
Prior to the Board meeting Sa-Dhan organized a national conclave of the role of microfinance in the changing Financial sector landscape yesterday at Bengaluru, where the panelists discussed the ways to sustain and grow in the current scenario of sectoral stress. The panelists also emphasized the need for better customer grievance management in microfinance. On this occasion, Sa-Dhan brought out a manual for Customer Grievance Redressal Mechanism in Microfinance sector. A revamped AVR based Tollfree number was also launched
Sa-Dhan has about 236 members working in 33 states/UTs and over 600 districts, which includes both, for Profit and Not for Profit MFIs, SHG promoting institutions, banks, rating agencies, capacity-building institutions etc. Sa-Dhan's members with diverse legal forms and operating models, reach out to approximately 52 million clients with loans outstanding of more than INR 2,27,410 crore. Sa-Dhan is also recognised as a National Support Organization (NSO) by the National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM).
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