According to sources Flipkart’s 100 million customers and around 100,000 sellers could be in for some better times, at least with regard to their needs for finance for making purchases is concerned. Recently the Indian e-commerce giant has announced that it is entering the fintech sector in a serious manner having applied for an NBFC license.
As per report Flipkart will then come to the rescue of customers on its platform who would want to make substantial purchases but are unable to do so for want of funds. Meanwhile according to the company, the segment of its customers without access to funding due to various reasons could be as high as 60%. Moreover Flipkart will aim to fill this gap and lend the amounts to facilitate the purchases and have a system to collect the repayments.
Furthermore apart from the lending vertical, there
have been talks of Flipkart wanting to foray into the insurance sector as well.
Even though in the long term the plan is to include all insurance products,
like life and general insurance. Accordingly Flipkart has plans to follow a
different path from the ones adopted by some of the existing players like
CoverFox or Bank Bazaar; the e-commerce company would not act as the aggregate
but would directly offer the loan products from its own balance sheet. Finally it
is learnt that Flipkart has already entered into arrangements with partnering
firms for the lending business, though their identities have not been
disclosed.
