Social Stock Exchange: An Innovative Financing Platform for Social Enterprises in India

Abstract

Social finance is considered to be the mainstream problem in India for goods and services which targets the disadvantaged and poorer sections of the society. It is proposed by Indian finance ministry in the recent budget speech to create a separate system to for fund raising to help the disadvantaged people of society. Social stock exchange is a platform on which social enterprises, volunteer groups and welfare organizations will be listed so that they can raise capital. The proposal has attracted much attention, and social entrepreneurs, among others, have said that the move can have a revolutionary effect on how they tap investors for capital. With social finance, impact investors put their capital behind enterprises that profitably cater to underserved populations by expanding access to critical goods and services, such as healthcare, affordable housing, credit, and quality employment etc. A unified platform can bring in greater transparency for nonprofits, and help both individuals and the corporate sector evaluate organizations they would like to give money to. Such a platform can help with both discoveries of organizations and in impact evaluation, which is otherwise expensive. The fund channeling capability of social stock exchanges for the purpose of social upliftment of society will certainly be a game changer for those who have fire to do something for the society but lack resources. The present paper highlights the basic concepts of Social Stock Exchange and various terms associated with it, such as Social Enterprises and Impact Investment. It also analyses the proposal of Indian Government for setting Social Stock Exchange and how it will function. The paper further exhibits how would social stock exchange help in Indian context? In the end paper studies the probable challenges in introducing Social Stock Exchange in India.