Non-Banking Financial Company (NBFC), CreditAccess Grameen Ltd. plans to raise a capital of up to Rs 1,000 crore this month through selling shares to financial institutions, said two people directly aware of the matter.

CreditAccess is one of India’s largest microfinance institution and focuses on providing micro-loans to women of rural areas across the country. Headquartered in Bengaluru, it operates in 13 states including Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh.

“Last month, the company’s shareholders cleared the proposal to issue fresh shares to enable the company to raise to Rs 1,000 crore in fresh funds. The qualified institutional placement (QIP) is likely to be launched as early as this week,” said one of the two persons cited above.

In a recent filing, the lender said that the additional fundraised will be utilised by the company for meeting its business activities and for general corporate purposes and for improving the capital adequacy ratio as per the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

In a recent investor presentation, the lender said that from June to September, the micro-lenders collections have been improved from 74 per cent to 88 per cent and about 77 per cent of its customers are making 100 per cent payments as of September, while only 8 per cent of its customers have made no payments.

 In the quarter ended on 30 June 2020, the gross loan portfolio of CreditAccess stood at Rs 11,724 crore, with 4 million active borrowers and a branch network of 1,388 locations.