This Startup is disrupting the lending space by providing free consumer services

As retail banks steadily digitalize their bustles, they've concentrated, to a great extent, on the most frequent customer transaction, for example, checking a balance or remote deposit. A significant part of the loaning field, except for Mastercards, has taken a secondary lounge. New digital entrants, going from financial technology start-ups to officeholder retailers and telecommunication suppliers, have recognized the open door, and are assaulting dainty cuts of the loaning benefit pool. A significant number of these financial technology guerillas, or fintechs, give a superior affair by concentrating on the necessities of specific customers—often an underserved segment. Trying to disrupt this space Finance Buddha came into being.

About

Founded by Vivek Bhatia, Parth Pande, and Parag Agarwal in 2012, Finance Buddha is a neutral marketplace for retail lending products like personal loan, business loan, home loans and loan against property. After spending 7 years at Citibank Parth co-founded Finance Buddha. At the time of leaving Citibank he was a Vice President. He was part of the founding team with Citibank for the new Sales and Distribution model adopted by the bank.

Talking to Business Insider, he said, “We are an omni channel company present both online and offline, and have a unique proposition of carrying out transactions end to end including customer acquisition, product fitment, documentation, operation management, bank negotiation and final disbursement instead of just being a lead generation platform which uses other’s supply chain for transaction fulfilment. This end to end model helps us in controlling the customer experience, and delivering superior value for both the consumer and the financial institution involved. In addition this end to end model, gives us superior economics as a company and an ability to negotiate better offers for our customers.”

Monetization Model

Parth stated that the company is monetising through three different models:

1. For every loan that they originate, their lenders pay them a fee for the same. The services are completely free for the consumers.

2. They create specific product programs for lenders, and share revenues on the same as well with them.

3. Also, they use database of over 100,000+ customers to create new products and cross sell opportunities on them to create life time value for the consumer and Finance Buddha

Traction

Parth stated that the company is targeting loans worth over 2000 cr which would make them one of the biggest lending platforms in the nation. He also claimed to have over 5000 applicants a month. “The company did over $3 million in revenues last year,” he added

Funding details & Expansion Plans

The company had last raised seed round of financing in January from The Chennai Angels, also they’re in the process of closing another round by the end of this year.
The company is in the expansion mode. Parth said that they’re in a process of creating an alternative lending solution that can help people (who are unable to get credit from mainstream lenders) get credit. He quoted, “we are working to creating more efficient technology processes along with our lenders for the consumers to get a seamless experience.”