Mumbai: Mr. Sandeep Wirhkare, MD & CEO of Indian School Finance Company, has been felicitated as “CEO of the year” in the NBFC segment presented by Asia HRD Congress, in the 20th Edition of Business Leader of the year at an event held in Mumbai.
Indian School Finance Company (ISFC) is the first sector specific NBFC in India catering to the K12 school and skill segment. The company focuses on providing finance to the budget Private schools for their infrastructural development, working capital, digital upgradation & cost free student fee financing.
ISFC used pandemic as an opportunity to transform itself into a new age scalable business model in its version 2 where it has launched multiple digital products and moved towards fintech model while retaining its strength over the school infra financing.
During the pandemic, the company reworked its product offering to build upon 360º relationship with customers, provide them with additional support in these tough times by offering digital content through its partners and launched a “School Rejuvenation Program” to help schools get back into the business through various offerings so that education is restarted as quickly as possible.
“One of the most affected NBFC due to prolonged school closures, more than any other country, the company faced survival and continuity challenges. Through innovative customer engagements, shareholders & lenders support the team ensured the company was quick to turn around back into profitability by Q3 of financial year 2021-22,” says Sandeep Wirkhare MD & CEO. Further adding, he said, “I am grateful to every customer and ISFC team member who supported in this comeback and together we look forward to making ISFC the largest influencer in the education and skill ecosystem through financial intervention.”
ISFC is the first sector specific NBFC to cater to underserved budget private schools in semi-urban and rural parts of India. Its business model under its Version 1 avatar was unique as credit delivery in this segment needed very specialized underwriting knowledge, distribution and collection skill sets that were not very robust with mainstream lending institutions.
Last 12 years the company specialized in this unique segment under its conventional and transactional business model and created a brand amongst the budget private schools it is now looking to expand its business under its Version 2.
ISFC V2 is all about 360º relationship, multiple products, scalability and digitization. During the pandemic, the company was quick to change its business model from “business to business” to include parents and teachers as customers under B2B2C by introducing “Student fee financing” to be executed through its internally developed loan origination application called TuTo that is capable of funding fee digitally within minutes. The schools are also given an option to take limited ERP free of cost for schools to implement this product effectively.
