Real life stories about ordinary people empowered to seize the opportunities that came their way, thanks to Manappuram Gold Loans.

• Dynamic entrepreneur, with finger in many pies 

  Pulla Madhu, 30, is a talented young man from Mandi Bazaar of Warangal. Married, and with two school going kids, his main source of income is from his mobile shop in the city called SH Mobiles. He sells and services a variety of mobile phones and his advice to customers is that touch-screen phones are not sturdy. 

  Not content with the earnings from his mobile shop, Pulla Madhu is involved in three more ventures. There's a chit-funds business, a travel agency, and a business dealing in daily finance. “My travel agency can very well cater to your needs when you come next time to Warangal”, he tells us with evident pride.  

  The Chits business has 80 members divided into three groups with subscriptions of Rs.10,000, Rs.50,000 and Rs.1 lakh each. The chits run for a term of three years and the annual turnover is about Rs.15 Lakhs which enables him to make a profit of Rs.1.5 Lakhs. Besides, there is the income from daily finance and the travel agency. All put together, his earnings permit him the luxury of a decent lifestyle, with ownership of a house and car.

  How has Madhu, a 10th standard dropout, found the resources to run all these ventures for the past 12 years? Initially, he reveals, he used to depend on local moneylenders, but they were costly. His profits were low and he was on the lookout for some other source when he came across Manappuram Finance. For the past three years, he has been a regular customer of its Desaipet branch which he visits often, for pledging or releasing gold as required. 

• A small ad agency holds its own

  Anil Kumar M.R., 45, has been running “Edit Creations”, an advertising firm in Thrissur, for the past eight years. He has a small office in the town from where he runs the show. He has two school going children. He earns about Rs 50,000 per month and his venture clocks an annual turnover of over fifteen lakh rupees a year. 
  The business comes from 200 odd customers for whom Anil Kumar designs and delivers the art-work for advertisement in the print media. 

  ​Anil Kumar is an active member of the Small-scale Merchants' and Manufacturers' Association. He points out that in the ad agency business it is most important pay your service providers on time. He has to deal often with artists, photographers, printing press owners, creative writers etc. And he is required to clear their bills well before customers make the payments for his services. Not surprisingly then, he is frequently in need of cash for short periods, and it has to be readily available. 

  He affirms that the Manappuram branch is an excellent place to raise cash free of hassles which he can repay at his convenience. In fact, over the past two years he has approached Manappuram more than 50 times, though presently he has only two live pledges. On Nov.30, 2012, the Economic Times had carried a news report on its front page with the title, “Gold Helps Fund a Thousand Entrepreneurial Dreams”. It was about how gold loans were helping ordinary people become entrepreneurs and it carried this quote from Anilkumar:  "I have been taking gold loan for the last seven years," says MR Anilkumar, who runs an advertising unit in Thrissur, also in Kerala. "Unlike banks where there are a lot of procedures, the process here is fast. Since these are sudden requirements, I don't bother much about the interest rate," he adds.