Ten years on from the foundation of Grameen Capital India, its chief executive still has a mission.
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| Royston Braganza, Grameen |
“It’s my crazy dream,” says Royston Braganza. “A capital-with-a-conscience ecosystem, with a social investment bank, a social debt vehicle, a social equity fund and a social stock exchange.” The first of those four components is Grameen Capital itself, founded as a joint venture between Grameen Foundation USA, Citi and IFMR Trust, and whose 10th anniversary passed on Sunday.
“We were globally the first social investment bank, set up as a social business primarily because we spoke both languages: that of the capital markets and of life at the bottom of the pyramid, where there were 400 million people living below $1.50 a day,” Braganza says, speaking to Euromoney at a BNP Paribas conference on sustainability.
“We were set up to be a connector, to become the pipes through which liquidity can flow.”
Grameen Capital serves microfinance institutions (MFIs) and similar organizations, providing them with debt and equity solutions to build scale.
