Mumbai/Tamil Nadu, 31st July: Digital lending marketplace RupeeCircle has set up a segment-wise model of credit disbursement through its P2P platform. Deserving Individuals and families belonging to certain communities who were hitherto declined loans from banks and NBFCs due to lack of sufficient credit history or lack of a proper bank account can now avail loans on the P2P platform.
By disbursing loans to individuals and families living in rural areas of Kulasekaram, Thiruvattur, Thipparappu and surrounding areas of Kanyakumari District, Tamil Nadu, RupeeCircle has commenced the process. The target community here are the daily wage earners working in Rubber Estates and cashew factories, and farmers.
Speaking on this new initiative Ajit Kumar, Founder and CEO, RupeeCircle, said “Our market research threw light on the fact that by reaching out to communities we stood a better chance of not only disbursing loans to credit worthy individuals but also subsume the concept of P2P lending and borrowing. And this is very important because people need to be aware that there are other (and better) alternatives to credit than banks and moneylenders.”
“There are several communities in rural as well as urban India who are under-banked and fail to get their loans approved due to lack of sufficient credit history. In their need of the hour they turn to local moneylenders who levy exorbitant rate of interest”, said Nikhil Prabhakar, IIM (Ahmedabad) alumnus and Head of Marketing & Products at RupeeCircle. “Making credit accessible by leveraging Peer-to-Peer lending solutions will not only bring an individual under the ambit of the organised banking sector but gradually the benefits will percolate to the whole community.”
RupeeCircle, licensed by RBI (NBFC-P2P), has disbursed more than INR 50 million over the last few months to under-banked individuals.
Thousands of individuals have registered over the last few months and the default rate has been at a constant decline (currently at an impressive 0.89%), which not only signifies the trust of lenders but the robustness of its proprietary credit underwriting algorithm. This outreach to under-banked communities will fortify the efforts of financial inclusion in a country where unsecured credit is hard to get.