The Impact of COVID-19 on the Indian Microfinance Industry and Its Sustainability

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has interrupted operations throughout the world. It also forced all the industries towards unprecedented changes of their business operations, and in some cases, it pushes the businesses to shut down their operations either partially or fully. The microfinance industry is one of the sectors that was affected badly by the pandemic. As a result, microfinance institutions were forced to do some considerable changes to their domestic processes and make tricky decisions to decrease their loan issue process while the loan is required mostly by the borrowers or dropping employees' salaries. In the same way, microfinance customers were also affected. It forced business units to close their operations, and as a result, it condensed revenue generation. Customers also faced the tortuous brunt from the interrupted business support which were frequently incompatible and inadequate for public support. As a result, few customers have realized better income generation during the pandemic.