Shivani Siroya

Indian fintech pioneer democratizing credit access through AI-driven microfinance platforms

Shivani Siroya revolutionized financial inclusion through her Mumbai-based fintech company Tala, which has provided over $2 billion in loans to underserved populations since 2020. Her AI algorithm evaluates 10,000+ data points from mobile usage patterns to assess creditworthiness, enabling instant loans to 14 million+ users in Africa and Asia without traditional collateral. In 2022, she launched Tala Green, the first microfinance platform integrating climate resilience metrics, helping farmers access drought-resistant crop loans. Siroya's 2021 partnership with UN Women created the Women's Financial Independence Index, now used by 22 governments to measure economic empowerment. Her World Economic Forum initiative FinTech4Good trained 50,000+ women in digital finance across 8 countries by 2024. Siroya's 2023 TED Talk 'The Future of Credit is Human' (https://www.ted.com/talks/shivani_siroya_the_future_of_credit_is_human) sparked global discussions on algorithmic fairness in lending. She developed the Fintech Impact Framework, adopted by the BIS to measure financial services' social impact. Recently, her HealthFirst product provided no-interest medical loans during the 2023 Ebola outbreak in Congo, reaching 800,000 patients in 6 weeks. Siroya's work was recognized in Time Magazine's 2022 list of '100 Most Influential People' for creating 'banking systems that see people, not just numbers.'