Fullerton India partners with Paytm to expand digital lending to MSMEs

As per the partnership agreement, both the companies will leverage data-driven insights to bring credit to new-to-credit users.

The Indian e-commerce and fintech enterprise will offer Paytm Postpaid (buy-now-pay-later) to millions of consumers on the Paytm platform while utilizing Fullerton’s deep risk assessment capabilities and scale.

Fullerton India and Paytm will further expand their product offerings to include instant personal loans, which are end-to-end digitally originated and disbursed using the digital payment startup's tech expertise and the non-banking company's pan India presence.

The partnership will also offer merchant loans across the country.

The two institutions would establish a wide network, specifically catering to MSMEs across small cities and towns to aid them in generating revenue.

Creating Merchant loan products is another priority for both the enterprises.

Bhavesh Gupta, CEO at Paytm Lending, said, “We have seen great adoption of the lending products among consumers and merchants on our platform. We believe that there is a massive opportunity to provide access to credit to merchants in small cities and towns."

Consumer credit has been growing exponentially through products like Paytm Postpaid and Personal Loans and can be further expanded through the current partnership with Fullerton India, he said.

Shantanu Mitra, CEO & MD at Fullerton India, said, “Fullerton India believes that buy-now-pay-later is the present and, in the future, too, will continue to offer tremendous opportunities to drive exponential growth in digital lending across customer segments.

"We understand the importance of timely & convenient credit facilities for merchants and small businesses at the time of business transactions and orders.

"With Paytm, we aim to cater to a wider customer set of individual consumers, merchants and business owners by offering faster, seamless, more affordable finance with minimum documentation to fulfill their financial needs.

Customers will also be able to repay their loans on the same platform, he said.