About Us Dia Vikas

Social impact through Dia Vikas in India

To deepen our locally-led development in India, Opportunity works with Dia Vikas Capital Pvt. Ltd. (Dia Vikas), is a subsidiary of Opportunity International Australia and member of the Opportunity International Network. Dia Vikas was established in early 2008 in India as a social investor to fill the gap of social investment and thereby support the growth of Indian microfinance sector and encourage the development of start-up operations in underserved areas. Since its inception, Dia Vikas has provided catalytic and patient capital to mission aligned financial inclusion partners with the mission to reduce poverty through provision of financial services to the underserved poor.

Dia Vikas’ mission is to help build pathways out of poverty by partnering with Inclusive Financial service providers with smart, sustainable, resilient, scalable solutions that address the complex nature of poverty and leverage digital technologies to scale and sustain them. The organisation’s core activity, critical to the delivery of its mission of poverty reduction, is to identify and invest in mission aligned inclusive finance institutions engaged in providing low-cost, high-quality financial services targeted at people living in poverty so that poor families can lift themselves out of poverty and create sustainable livelihoods.

Dia Vikas also supports local partners in India, until they reach financial and operational maturity, by helping strengthen their governance practices and provides assistance to ensure that its partners uphold responsible financial practices in their financial services provision to people living in poverty.

Key Interventions:

• Providing debt, equity and quasi-equity funding to partners.
• Developing strong relationships with partners and investing in their leadership.
• Encouraging partners to transform into more compliant, impactful and better governed entities.
• Providing technical and operational support, including credit plus and complementary services.

^{Dia Vikas CEO Arpita Pal Agrawal with Opportunity International Australia CEO Scott Walters}

Leadership

Arpita Pal Agrawal commenced as the Managing Director (MD) and CEO of Dia Vikas in early 2023. Prior to joining Dia Vikas, Arpita was MD of M-CRIL, a social enterprise that provides high quality professional services for the economic enhancement of the lives of low-income families. She has over 25 years of management and risk consulting experience in Big 4 professional services firms. Arpita sits on the Supervisory Board of an international social impact investor, on the Governing Board of Sa-Dhan (representing more than 200 Indian microfinance institutions), and is an Independent Director in the banking arm of India’s biggest Telco.

Arpita is an advocate for the power of technology to transform life opportunities and create impact at scale.