)
“With the overall higher education trend indicating strong growth with a CAGR of 30 per cent over the last five years, Pune is emerging as one of the primary contributors to the Avanse business nationally, and is one of the most significant and evolving markets in the Indian education sector. In terms of education streams, engineering, management and medicine represent 80 per cent of the total streams sought by students. But we are witnessing a steady shift towards new age courses such as photography, PR, Image consulting, Music etc. We are pioneering the trend of financing these courses,” said Neeraj Saxena, CEO, Avanse Education Loans.
He added, “Pune is education hub of India and we are targeting more students from the city. In last one year already, the company has serviced over 300 students from Pune with loan disbursements of around Rs 12 crore.
According to Saxena, there are more than 20 million students who are looking for higher education and the total spend on their education is of Rs 80,000 crore. Along with USA, now students prefer to go to countries like Canada, Germany, Singapore and UK for higher studies. The sector is growing at 30 per cent CAGR. Avanse charges rate of interest of 12.5 to 13.5% depending upon the loan amount and duration of repayment. In addition to loans for the regular under-graduate and post-graduate courses like engineering, medicine and management, it offers loan for new age courses like image consulting, photography, film writing and music.
Avanse is registered as a non-banking financial company, in which Dewan Housing has majority stake. The International Finance Corporation (IFC), an arm of the World Bank holds 20 per (Rs 12 crore) cent stake. Since its inception over a year ago, Avanse has disbursed loans worth more than Rs 65 crore to over 750 students for higher education. The average ticket size of loans sanctioned is in the range of Rs 15-16 lakh.
It's own offices are in Mumbai, Delhi, Pune and also operates through Dewan Housing's offices in Bangalore, Kolkatta, Chennai, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad.
As a expansion plan, Avanse is also planning to give loans to educational institutions this year. The loans will be given only to established institutions and for expansion. The company has serviced over 700 students with loan disbursements of around Rs 50 crore in the current financial year.
A non-banking finance company (NBFC) regulated by RBI, Avanse Education Loans is an associate company of Dewan Housing Finance Corporation Limited (DHFL). The International Finance Corporation (IFC), an arm of the World Bank holds 20% equity stake in Avanse.
