Snapdeal Forays Into Financial Services; Acquires RupeePower

E27.CO: Indian online marketplace Snapdeal has  announced its foray into financial services with the acquisition of a majority stake in RupeePower, a digital financial products distribution platform, for an undisclosed amount. The e-commerce player will now offer consumers a financial services marketplace by integrating RupeePower onto the Snapdeal platform. It aims to enable US$1 billion consumer loans disbursal over the next two years.

RupeePower is a digital distribution platform for loans, credit cards and other personal finance products. With its credit comparison, matching and processing infrastructure and affiliation with banks and NBFCs, RupeePower will now join forces with Snapdeal to provide customers with a host of financial products.

Commenting on this, Kunal Bahl, Co-founder and CEO, Snapdeal said, “Realising the various difficulties that consumers face while deciding and purchasing financial products/services and the challenges that companies face whilst reaching out to the ‘right’ audience, we have brought RupeePower into our family, to help solve the distribution challenges of the financial services ecosystem and make it more inclusive.”

The marketplace will include a range of financial services like personal loans, educational loans, credit cards (co-brand – B2B and B2C), auto loans, home loans and extended warranties, amongst others.

The share of digital origination of credit is poised to grow from 7.5 per cent to 40 per cent over the next four years, in a INR 400,000 crore (US$67B) retail credit market growing at 20 per cent annually.

With this launch, financial services companies will now be able to leverage Snapdeal’s reach. Currently, these companies face the challenge of limited reach in tier II and beyond towns and cities. The collaboration between Snapdeal and RupeePower, through the launch of this financial services marketplace, will help them overcome this challenge.