Fintech is the latest buzzword in the financial services industry which is booming with a record US$91.5 billion in global funding so far this year. That’s almost twice as much as what the sector collected in the entirety of 2020. India itself is now the world’s second biggest fintech hub with ~2,565 startups operating currently, there were only 737 in 2014.
Digital Fintech platforms have emerged as one of the most important sectors for digitalization in the financial sector. In fact, fintech has become an important sector for startups and with the ongoing technological advancement in the fintech industry, new-age fintech companies are trying to solve daily issues for Indian consumers and make lending affordable, seamless, and hassle-free.
These platforms are also helping women make their own financial decisions by innovative financial mechanisms and technologies that can be leveraged to help women entrepreneurs access funding and grow.
Below are some of the fastest-growing ‘Fintech’ platforms in India, which are creating buzz in digital lending space and also paving way for women entrepreneurs to grow more:
Indifi
Indifi Technologies is a Gurgaon-based lending platform, enabling debt financing for small businesses. It aims to substantially improve the experience for borrowers regarding credit access as well as the speed and convenience of the loan process. Driven by the idea of expanding access to MSME financing in India, Indifi has emerged as an enabler for start-ups and small businesses seeking seamless access to funding. Indifi expands the envelope of formal lending by designing the right-fit credit products for MSMEs, improving the standard of risk assessment, and leveraging the supply chain linkages of MSMEs. Indifi has recently partnered with Facebook to offer loans to small businesses. The company already provides zero collateral loans to small businesses in the country, but the partnership with Facebook gives it the chance to reach more borrowers in the country. Indifi uses digital processes to do know-your-customer (KYC) checks and verification of companies. The company has a non-banking financial entity (NBFC) of its own, it also partners with private banks to provide loans to SMBs and they provide loans to women with 2% less rate of interest.
Indifi has designed its products such that they suit the use cases dominant in each industry – hence, restaurants may need a short tenure term loan for minor renovations, whereas retailers may need working capital to account for seasonal peaks in business.
So far, Indifi has disbursed over 35,000+ loans, amounting to over Rs 1500 crore until March 2021, with 80 partners across 650 cities.
LendingKart
Lendingkart is a web platform that enables SMEs to apply for collateral free working capital loans. The company uses cash flow, credit history, and customer experiences to evaluate the business. Claim to disburse the loan within 3 days. In Feb ’16, the company tied up with Voonik and Craftsvilla to offer loans to their merchants. In March ’16, entered into a strategic partnership with Mahindra’s SmartShift, a digitally enabled aggregator for cargo owners and transporters. To make working capital funds easily accessible to SmartShift SMEs. In April 2017, the company raised $4.65M in the form of non-convertible debentures (NCD) from Anicut Capital.
FlexiLoans
FlexiLoans is an online lending platform started with an endeavour to solve the problem that SMEs face in accessing Quick, Flexible & Adequate funds for growing their Businesses. Over 80% of Loan proposals from SMEs currently are rejected by institutional channels on account of inadequate financial history or collaterals. With the fast & ubiquitous digital adoption in India & increased avenues to leverage data analytics, FlexiLoan is standing on the verge of Banking transformation in this country which will help them efficiently cater to the large untapped & unserved demand. They wish to make the ‘social & alternative scoring of SMEs & Individuals a big opportunity for the economy that will far out place the limited insights that financial bureau provides. FlexiLoans believe that their technology-powered online marketplace is the best model to meet the financial requirements of SME’s who do not have credit history & hence cannot avail loans from traditional banking channels. It is geolocated in Mumbai & provides collateral-free loans across India.
