Arc is testing, piloting and expanding a number of business models that are focused on financing for sustainable energy including microfinance, remittances, asset finance, crowd-funding and pay as you go mechanisms. The end goal of REMMP is to increase access to finance for end-users of clean energy services so as to improve livelihoods and quality of life among these target recipients.
For full details on REMMP project, click here
Milaap
Linking Energy and Microfinance: Promoting Innovations That Foster Scale
Arc published and disseminated in depth research on new financial products that MFIs are developing to blend financing with energy and water around the world. The creation of these financial products - including lending, savings, remittances and leasing products - resulted in new alliances between MFIs and other entities such as energy and water enterprises to provide livelihood enhancement products to the poor.
Crowdfunding in the Energy Access Space
Crowdfunding raises vast sums of untapped capital by aggregating small amounts from the pocketbooks of ordinary people around the globe, typically on a web platform and through social networks. In just a couple of decades, crowdfunding sites have come to occupy an increasingly segmented, specialized and competitive online marketplace of over US$5 billion. In this Briefing Note, read about crowdfunding examples related to the energy access space that are representative of this growing diversity: Indiegogo, Kiva, Milaap and SunFunder. View PDF ►
Milaap Uses Crowdfunding to Catalyze Energy Microfinance
Founded in 2010, Milaap is a Bangalore-based social enterprise that deploys online lending and other innovative funding methods to fill the existing capital gap for microfinance institutions (MFIs) interested in building lending portfolios for energy, water and other essential services. By channeling low-cost, flexible loan capital from an expanding base of both online and offline lenders to a select group of MFI field partners, Milaap is directly impacting the lives of a growing number of poor people throughout rural India. View PDF ►