Shubham customer in Lucknow

Shubham

Tech-enabled home loans for India's emerging consumers

Industry:

Mortgage Lending

Region:

South Asia

Website:

Shubham.co

$ 12,000 0

Average mortgage size

$ 825 0 M

Assets under management

200 0

Branches Nationally

Shubham is a specialist affordable mortgage lender that operates in 12 states in India with broad distribution across 200 branches. The company offers loan products to low-income Indian families largely excluded from formal banking services.

The Challenge

The Challenge

Access to formal housing remains out of reach for millions of low-income households in India.

Despite India’s rapid economic trajectory, a profound structural mismatch persists in the housing finance market. Many aspiring homeowners, particularly urban migrants and workers in the informal economy, are unable to secure loans from formal lenders and are often forced to rely on informal, high-interest loans.1

More than 88% of workers in India are employed in the informal sector where income is often paid in cash or derived from micro-entrepreneurship. As a result, these individuals lack standard documentation such as payslips or tax returns to verify their incomes and secure finance from formal finance institutions.2 Most banks in India do not have the tools or the capacity to assess and manage credit risk for this market and most non-bank financial institutions lack access to the long-term funding necessary to make housing finance affordable.3 This has led to millions of aspiring homeowners either being forced into informal lending at high interest rates or denied housing finance outright, eroding the ability build generational wealth.4 

The financing gap is occurring concurrently with a rapid increase in demand for affordable housing. Indias’s urban population is expanding amid continued population growth, internal migration, and the reclassification of rural areas into urban centres. Employment opportunities are also linked to urban centres, with over 70% of the new jobs in India expected to be generated in cities by 2030.5

The scale of the unmet need is significant, with India’s cumulative affordable housing shortage projected to reach 31.2 million units by 2030, implying a potential financing opportunity for lenders estimated at ₹45 trillion ($48 billion).6 Bridging this gap is not only essential from a commercial perspective but is a key social imperative as formal housing finance is a primary lever for improving sanitation, living conditions and providing financial security for India’s emerging middle class.

1 UN Habitat, 2025 | 2 International Labor Organisation, Periodic Labour Force Survey, 2024 | 3 Ibid |4 World Bank, 2014 | 5 World Bank, Towards resilient and prosperous cities in India, 2025 | 6 Knight Frank, Affordable Housing in India, December 2024

shubham housing development finance.1
shubham housing development finance.1

Source: Periodic Labour Force Survey, 2023-24

Shubham's Solution

Shubham is a leader in providing housing finance solutions to those with informal incomes, and among the first organisations in India to evolve from document-based underwriting to customised credit programs for each customer.

Shubham has built a scalable and profitable model around alternative credit assessment. Its proprietary income assessment methodology analyses total household earnings, drawing on profession-based benchmarking, inventory records, receipts, community validation, and predictive analytics. This allows the company to serve borrowers with no formal income documentation, from shopkeepers and tailors to gig workers and cash-salaried employees, while maintaining high credit quality.

Digital tools are embedded end-to-end: loan applications, property valuations, personal discussions, and underwriting are managed through mobile apps, reducing turnaround times and improving transparency. The company operates across 12 Indian states, has disbursed ₹86 billion (~US$1 billion) in loans over the past four years, and currently enables homeownership for more than 71,000 households.

Beyond financial inclusion, Shubham’s impact thesis emphasises the transformative effect of home ownership on emerging consumers. By enabling first-time homebuyers to secure safe and sanitary housing, the company contributes to improved health outcomes, educational opportunities, and economic stability.

Shubham’s impact is particularly notable in advancing gender equity: 93% of its borrowers or co-borrowers are women, and its flagship products, such as Shubh Shakti and Shubh Udyogini, are tailored to female homebuyers and entrepreneurs.

shubham housing development finance.3
shubham housing development finance.3

Source: Company Data, 2025

LeapFrog's Impact

LeapFrog first invested in Shubham in 2022, and made a further investment in 2026, to help the company scale responsibly, strengthen governance, and unlock long-term strategic value.

LeapFrog has supported Shubham’s evolution to a high-performing, commercially recognised lender. Over the past four years, the company’s assets under management has grown ~3x to ₹75 billion ($US 824M), while remaining firmly focused on its core mission – 94% of the portfolio is retail lending, and a significant share serves first-time and new-to-credit borrowers.

Going forward, LeapFrog will continue to support the company’s digital transformation – a key lever for growth and profitability. The company already utilises a strong tech stack that includes mobile-based onboarding for field agents, digital property valuation systems for technical teams, and specialised underwriting applications that enable more efficient customer engagement and faster credit decisions. The company is rolling out Salesforce to unify and streamline tools and processes which will create a more integrated platform across teams while strengthening data management and cybersecurity frameworks to support long-term growth.

In 2024, LeapFrog partnered with Shubham to design and execute its first large-scale customer impact survey. Survey results revealed that 80% of borrowers moved into improved housing, and 91% of women felt a greater sense of security. LeapFrog will work with the Company, leveraging the survey results, to support refinements to customer onboarding, turnaround times, and sales staff training, to drive productivity and cost optimisation while ensuring Shubham’s offerings better align with the lived realities of its customer base.

LeapFrog’s Talent Accelerator has started working alongside Shubham’s senior management team to initiate best-in-class development programs within the company.

As of December 2025, Shubham’s gross non-performing assets stood at 1.3% with a capital adequacy ratio of 40%, reflecting a resilient and well-capitalised platform. Through this continued collaboration, LeapFrog and Shubham aim to further expand access to responsible housing finance while building a commercially strong and inclusive lender for India’s emerging consumers.

Page last updated March 2026.

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“Since investment from LeapFrog and others in 2022, our credit ratings have improved substantially, we have launched eight new products, expanded the number of branches, and catered to more rural and semi-urban households whom traditionally the banking sector doesn’t lend to.”

— Shubham Chief Risk Officer, Simmi Dhingra

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Shubham is one of many LeapFrog investments in financial services. Read more on our latest work in the sector.

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