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Mulamoottil Financiers: Facilitating Quick Credit Access to the Unbanked Rural Population of Kerala

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Jacob Thomas, MD ,Ashley Jacob, CEO

Jacob Thomas, MD

Ashley Jacob, CEO

It has often been the case that villages in India lack Banks, and it also becomes difficult for the rural populace to find money lenders capable of giving a stable loan. Generally, people from villages avail loans as a stock gap method to fill in stocks or for short term fulfilment of specific goals & objectives. The problem arises when Bank's refuse to give loans for one month alone. This is where Gold Loans come in handy, and it still forms the financial backbone of rural India. Based in the Central Travancore region of Central Kerala encompassing five Districts, Mulamoottil Financiers is an NBFC that focuses entirely on the rural population of Kerala. Gold Loans are an essential source of easy finance for the rural population who may not have the stringent 'credit worthiness' norms and CIBIL score for access to personal loans, and this is where Mulamoottil Financiers comes into the picture as a pure Gold Loan company that plays a vital role in the facilitation of much needed quick credit access against the Gold ornaments.

Mulamoottil Financiers gives specialized loans in the sense that every loan is targeted and personalized in nature. The company offers loans of various hues ranging from farm loans, Agri gold loans, student loans to fish loans for fishermen. All the variety of loans offered at Mulamoottil Financiers are designed to appeal to a particular target community. It even includes a gold loan for the rural women looking to self employ them selves a unique feature nowhere else available in the Indian corporate setup. Thus far, Mulamoottil Financiers has already given


out student gold loans worth Rs. 26 crores to as many as 12 thousand rural students residing in Kerala.

Building Upon a Century Old Family Legacy
Mulamoottil Financiers is a family owned enterprise whose history can be traced back to the 1800s. Back then, it was a family of traditional Ayurvedic doctors and eye physicians of great reputation in the town of Kozhencherry who also had interests in money lending, tobacco trade and farming. It was Jacob Thomas Mulamootil a 6th generation Mulamootil, and the present Chairman & Managing Director who transformed the legacy family chit business into the present NBFC in 1994.

Mulamoottil financiers comes into the picture as a pure gold loan company that plays a vital role in the facilitation of much needed quick credit access against the gold ornaments


What started as a money lending business in the 1800s and a chit company in the late 1900s is now a full fledged NBFC focused on giving access to instant credit to the rural population of Central Kerala. The Mulamootil Group now owns Malls, Pharmacies, a supermarket, a school with over 10 acres of pristine beauty, and also Kerala's largest eye hospital. At present, under the guile & vision of Dr. Ashley Thomas Jacob, one of Kerala's most well loved eye doctors, who is also the present CEO at Mulamootil, the humanitarian thinker & multi achiever has transformed Mulamoottil Financiers to new heights in recent times.

The NBFC's efforts during the covid Pandemic has been immense and has left a lasting impression on the rural community. During the Pandemic, as schools went online, many students were struggling to gain access to mobile phones, tablets and PCs. This is where Mulamootil made a lasting impact by offering loans to students at only 10-12 percent so that the rural children might join their urban counterparts in online education. In this manner, Mulamoottil Financiers has ditched out nearly Rs. 26 crores in that scheme alone which helped a vast segment of the children hailing from rural areas.

One unique feature about Mulamoottil Financiers organization is the fact that nearly 95 percent of the workforce are women. This reflects the company's deep commitment to the idea of family and the recognition that women empowerment promotes family welfare and child welfare. Today, Mulamoottil Financiers belongs to the bracket of a few rare companies in India, with women at top positions of the organization and even having a Women Director of Board. The NBFC envisions having over 400 branches, thereby increasing its presence to every panchayat in Central Kerala by 2024.