BalrajXiaomi seeks to strengthen its credit market footprint in the country with a full spectrum of financial services across such as gold loans and credit line cards. In addition, the company plans to launch insurance products.
Illustration: TechStory × Freepik (Starline)
According to Xiaomi India’s Managing Director – Manu Kumar Jain, these offerings will be launched in collaboration with Axis Bank, IDFC Bank, Aditya Birla Finance Ltd, Stashfin, Money View, Early Salary, and Credit Vidya.
Mi Credit, the company’s micro-credit solution, was first introduced in 2019, and it claims to have financed more than a lakh loans since then. Mi Credit offers a maximum credit limit of Rs. 1 lakh. Unfortunately, the pandemic of last year had an impact on the investment involvement of investors.
Manu Kumar Jain stated, “Many quarters went into re-thinking about the future of Mi Credit or Mi Financial Services should look like. We are now back to growing this particular platform. Q1 2021 versus Q4 2020, we grew 95 percent, and Q1 2021 versus Q1 2020, we saw 35 percent growth.”
Jain went on to say that the company’s financial services will now be expanded to include a broader range of products. Mi Credit has plans to issue credit line cards in collaboration with India’s Credit Line and Personal Loan App Stashfin. Xiaomi will not only expand its loan business by offering gold loans and credit line cards, but it will also penetrate the insurance market, which has surged in popularity since the Covid outbreak in 2020.
Mi Credit, according to Jain, will now provide a pre-approved loan of up to Rs 25 lakh (up from Rs 1 lakh formerly) with a term of up to 60 months. Salaried employees made up 60 percent of the company’s loan customers with 40 users being self-employed. Xiaomi, on the other hand, intends to attract customers to offer Loans and credit line cards to Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
According to Xiaomi India Financial Services Head – Ashish Khandelwal, Xiaomi’s credit line cards is a one-of-a-kind approach that combines a Buy Now Pay Later offer with a personal loan to allow customers to use the offering across all platforms without any restrictions. Khandelwal also hinted that the gold loan service would be available in the coming weeks.
Xiaomi’s Mi Pay service launched in 2018, had surpassed 20 million registered users in less than a year, and currently handles 50 million users. Xiaomi has also teamed up with ICICI Lombard to offer health insurance services. The company also offers cyber insurance to more than 25,000 customers.