Paizabazaar.com which is an online loan marketplace is planning to bring in cooperative banks to its platform. It has been reported that cooperative banks in Ahmedabad have been approached by the portal.
Various bankers stated that it’s probably the first time an online aggregator is looking to offer as many options as possible to the consumers who are applying for loans through its platform as this pushes up the chances of approval.
“They are a great local bank to a segment which will help increase inclusion. These customers are the ones who now using internet via mobile phones and we expect to cater to these new set of customers by partnering with cooperative banks,” Naveen Kukreja, CEO,Paisabazaar.com said.
But, the latter did not disclose the details of its cooperative plans. He believes that with consumers from lower-income groups and tier-III and -IV towns going more digital, maybe it’s time for cooperative banks to up their digital play. He said that people from smaller cities and towns are now becoming more comfortable and confident in accessing credit digitally.
There are 1,562 urban cooperative banks of which 54 are scheduled banks. Urban cooperative banks have upward of 2 crore members. Loan ticket size of 95% of the loan accounts is less than Rs 25 lakh.
The loan firm claims to get around 20 million customers on its platform every month and since its inception in 2014, has registered a growth of more than 150% per annum. It gets over 1.5 million product enquires from 1,100 cities and towns every month.
Also, Paizabazaar.com has claimed to have annualised loan disbursal of $1 billion, out of which a large share comes from unsecured loans, which sees disbursals of around Rs 425 crore every month, which is still under2% of the entire unsecured lending market.