Almost eight-month after Indian e-commerce Flipkart had announced its plan to get into the lending business, the Walmart-owned firm has now begun a pilot project to offer instant credit to customers.
As of now, Flipkart is doing digital KYC with about 10,000 customers. It is working on a video Know Your Customer (KYC) solution to offer the services.
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According to The Economic Times, Flipkart is now working on a video KYC solution to offer instant credit to customers who buy through its platform. In fact, a pilot project is already underway.
“It’s still in a pilot basis for which we’ve opened it up to 10,000 users only, but in two to three weeks we should roll it out to the larger customer base on Flipkart,” Suyash Motarwar, Director – Engineering at Flipkart, told the daily.
He added that they have received an in-principle approval from the RBI and “our lending partners are working very closely with the RBI to ensure we are compliant”.
Kissht, which offers cardless EMIs to Flipkart customers, and ZestMoney, which offers EMI purchases during online transactions, are two of its major fintech partners.
According to Motarwar, Flipkart is looking to perfect its proprietary credit underwriting model that will largely utilise its own customer data, thereby allowing customers access to credit without actually having a credit history.
The company, which claims to have already lent to 1.2 million customers through partners, is tracking 500 to 1,000 data points to gauge a customer’s ability and intent to repay loans, both crucial factors having a bearing on delinquency.
In July 2018, Flipkart had announced its plans to foray into the lending space and had applied for an NBFC (Non Banking Financial Company) licence to focus on consumer lending.
At that time, the company said its plans to offer microlending and micro-insurance products for purchase on its website. It also revealed its long term plans of moving to products such as general and life insurance.