Paisabazaar.com Crosses Rs. 10,000 Crore Annualized Loan Disbursal Rate; Disburses Over Rs. 845 Crore in March 2019

• Becomes India’s first fintech to reach this milestone

• Aims to capture 10% of the unsecured loans market in next 3-4 years

• Plans to establish market leadership as a platform for all personal finance needs

 

Paisabazaar.com, India's largest online marketplace for financial products, announced today it has become the country’s first fintech to reach an annualized loan disbursal rate of over Rs. 10,000 crore. In March 2019, Paisabazaar.com disbursed loans amounting to more than Rs. 845 crore.

 

Loan Disbursal by Paisabazaar.com

 

Naveen Kukreja, CEO & Co-founder, Paisabazaar.com, said: “In the last two years, we have stretched our market leadership by 3X by focussing on product and process innovations, using analytics and technology strongly, creating deep partner integrations and introducing industry-first practices. But, the market opportunity remains massive, especially on digital, which Paisabazaar and our 100+ partners are focussing on strongly.”

 

Paisabazaar.com is targeting to reach an annualized loan disbursal of Rs. 23,000 crore by March 2020. A key enabler in moving towards this objective, Paisabazaar.com said, would be closer integrations with its partners, which includes India’s top private and public banks, NBFCs and digital lenders.

 

Rajan Pental, Senior Group President and Group Head, Branch and Retail Banking, YES Bank, said: “Our partnership with Paisabazaar.com has helped us offer faster and more seamless lending solutions to customers, through data-driven digital solutions. YES BANK congratulates Paisabazaar.com on achieving this milestone and looks forward to more such achievements through this partnership.”

 

Sudipta Roy, Head - Unsecured Assets & Cards, ICICI Bank, said: "ICICI Bank and Paisabazaar.com have been working closely for the last few years in order to offer a delightful consumer experience on digital channels by leveraging technology and analytics. Our journey continues to be collaborative.”

 

Ambuj Chandna, Senior Executive Vice President & Head - Consumer Assets, Kotak Mahindra Bank, said: "Over the last few years, we have witnessed a steady rise in customers looking for financial products on digital channels. Our aim is to serve these customers with a diverse set of products through simple, hassle-free and quick processes. Paisabazaar has been a valuable partner in this journey and we look forward to continuing to innovate together, to provide customers with easy and seamless access to credit."

 

Bhavesh Gupta, CEO, Clix Capital, said: "We congratulate the team on reaching this milestone. Clix and Paisabazaar.com are focussed to bring industry-first innovations in the digital space. We will continue to use new cutting-edge technologies and deep analytics to make digital lending seamless and accessible across customer segments. This will enable us to jointly lend to more and more borrowers, offering them a superior user experience comprising of a fully digital journey and instant access to credit."

 

Balaji Viswanath, VP – Digital Acquisitions, American Express, said: “Our partnership with Paisabazaar.com has enabled us to reach the right consumers with the right products, through technology and data innovations."

 

Aim to capture 10% of the unsecured lending market by in next 3-4 years

Unsecured loans, comprising personal loans to salaried customers and business loans to the self-employed segment, comprised ~63% of the total loan disbursals by Paisabazaar.com last month. In March 2019, Paisabazaar.com disbursed over 540 crore of unsecured loans to customers visiting its platform.

 

Unsecured loans form 63% of the total loan disbursals

 

 

Paisabazaar.com says its long-term objective is to reach 10% of the unsecured lending market – a milestone it is aiming to reach in the next 3-4 years.

As India’s digital marketplace platform, Paisabazaar.com, over the last couple of years, has introduced multiple types of lending products to meet specific needs of different customer segments coming to its platform. Along with the traditional lending products from banks, it also has brought innovative credit products on its platform to meet short-term and small borrowing needs of consumers, who can take a loan from Rs. 2000 to Rs. 1 lakh, through a completely digital process in a matter of minutes. For consumers with constant borrowing needs, Paisabazaar.com has Co-created a credit line product that can be availed through a 5-minute interaction with a chat-bot in a paperless and presence-less manner.

 

Radhika Binani, Chief Product Officer, Paisabazaar.com, said: “Paisabazaar.com has always kept the customer at the centre of everything we do. We are innovating constantly through our products, to stay aligned to the evolving needs and lifestyles of our customers and providing them a seamless experience while meeting their personal finance needs.”

 

Last year, Paisabazaar.com also introduced India’s first Chance of Approval model on its platform, which has helped customers choose the most-suited lending products available to them.

 

Gaurav Aggarwal, Head, Unsecured Loans, Paisabazaar.com, said: “The model has led to a 23% increase in loan approval rates on the Paisabazaar platform in six months. We have several key innovations in the pipeline which would make access to credit more seamless and simple on Paisabazaar.com.”

 

In 2019, Paisabazaar.com would also be working closely with some of its key partners to introduce customized lending products on its platform for other specific customer segments, like salaried women, credit builder products for first-time earners etc.

 

MSME Loans a key priority in 2019-20

Paisabazaar.com has witnessed an exponential increase in demand for credit from the self-employed segment in the last couple of years. Disbursals to self-employed customers have seen a 400% growth from last year and with over 25 partners on board, MSME will be one of  Paisabazaar.com’s biggest focus areas this financial year.

 

According to Paisabazaar.com, one of the biggest opportunities in Business Loans lies in the Tier II and III cities, which is fast adapting digital channels to access credit. The digital platform received enquiries for Business Loans from 976 cities and towns in March alone, with over 51% of the disbursals taking place outside the Top 10 cities.

 

With an aim to make access to credit hassle-free for the self-employed base, Paisabazaar.com is working closely with its bank and NBFC partners to bring in innovations, like PoS Loans, underwriting basis GST data and alternate credit scoring.

 

Ajay Mishra, Head, Business Loans, Paisabazaar.com, said: “While we are already the largest marketplace platform for MSME loans, the scope is huge. Over the next year, we aim to grow our disbursals to the self-employed community by 400%, by offering them best lending products with increased digital play.”

 

Taking Credit Cards to newer segments

Paisabazaar.com offers over 60 credit cards from 13 banks that meets the varying needs and lifestyles of its large customer base. This year, it plans to take credit cards to the underserved and new customer segments, by deeper integrations with partners, enabling them to match the right card with the right customer segments.

 

Paisabazaar.com is also working closely with partner banks to bring in process innovations like pre-approved offers with minimum documentation, that will help consumers avail credit cards matching their needs and profile seamlessly.

 

Sahil Arora, Head, Payment Products, Paisabazaar.com, said: “As a market leader, we have the responsibility of bringing more of India under the umbrella of formal credit. Credit Cards are ideal to build a strong credit history through good repayment behaviour and it is our endeavour at Paisabazaar to offer the right cards to customers, matching their profile and needs through innovative analytical models.”

 

Taking India closer to buying their own home through increased digital play

Home purchase, which usually involves availing a home loan, can often be an ordeal for consumers due to the largely offline processes involved. Paisabazaar.com, this year, will be specially focussing on bringing in more digital play to ease the home loan processes on its platform. It will work both on increasing its partnerships for home loans across the financial ecosystem and look to further build integrations with them that would help consumers save both time and money, while buying home loan products.

 

Ratan Chaudhary, Head, Secured Loans, Paisabazaar.com, said: “At Paisabazaar.com, we are not only helping our customers choose the best offer, but also accompanying them till very last step so that they cherish the experience at Paisabazaar in fulfilling one of the most important life goals.”

 

Paisabazaar.com works closely with over 35 banks and HFCs to offer a wide choice of home loan products to customers with varying profiles.

 

Also, being the market leader, Paisabazaar.com says, it gets customers from different incomes looking for home loans on its platform. While it has closed some of the biggest online home loans in the country in the last 4 years, Paisabazaar.com has also been focussing on affordable home loans for low income customers through exclusive affordable housing loan partnerships with YES Bank, Cholamandalam Finance  and others.

 

Offering a world-class experience through cutting-edge technology

According to Paisabazaar.com, one of the biggest factors behind its market leadership is the use of technology that has not only enhanced customer experience, but has led them to making smart and informed personal finance decisions.

 

Paisabazaar.com is working extensively on new technologies, with the aim to take the customer experience on its platform to the international level. With focus on the best global benchmarks, Paisabazaar.com will use artificial intelligence and machine learning to introduce multi-channel chat-bots for tailor-made advise and resolving customer queries seamlessly.

 

Mukesh Sharma, Chief Technology Officer, Lending, Paisabazaar.com, said: “Today, customers on the Paisabazaar platform are offered personalized product recommendations that are best-suited to them basis their profile and need.”

 

Paisabazaar.com also plans to increase its operational efficiency by bringing in one-of-a-kind quality assessment technology that would  focus on sentiment analysis of customers, enabling it to sharpen its recommendations across lending, investment and insurance products.

 

Building an one-stop personal finance platform

While Paisabazaar.com has been the online marketplace leader for lending products since the beginning of 2017, it aims to build a complete platform that meets all personal finance needs of a consumer. It became the first major independent platform to offer direct plans of mutual funds on its platform last year, and today works with more than 25 AMCs to offer all kinds of mutual fund products for varying needs, along with expert advise at absolutely zero commission.

 

Naveen Kukreja, CEO & Co-founder, Paisabazaar.com, said: “At Paisabazaar.com, we always do what’s best for our consumers. Whether it is providing free credit report for life from multiple bureaus or offering direct plans of mutual funds, which help investors save a significantly larger corpus over the long run due to zero commission. With India adapting digital at an unprecedent pace and the rise in popularity of mutual funds as a high-return proving investment option, there is a massive opportunity for a large consumer brand like us to build an industry-leading digital investment platform with the best products in the offering.”

 

Already a market leader in the online lending space, Paisabazaar.com says it is now aiming to make significant headway in the investment category.