Digital financial services company Indifi Technologies, has announced that it has recorded a sharp resurgence in credit demand in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. Segments in MSME such as e-commerce and retail saw the best-ever performance. The growth was bolstered by multiple factors including progressively tightened credit criteria; a cautious customer selection strategy and improving contribution margin. At the current momentum the company is well set to sustain a 50 per cent+ CAGR over the last four years and has already crossed the INR 500 crores AUM mark.
Through Q1 and Q2, even at the peak of the second wave, Indifi continued to cater to MSMEs across multiple segments like e-commerce, retail, pharma, food and hospitality, FMCG, and few more. The benefit reflected in better approval rates and a sharp 30 per cent plus increase in ticket sizes in these segments. Collection efficiency also saw a resurgence to highest ever levels, beating the best-in-class industry benchmarks. On the back of agile and customer centric product innovations Indifi crossed pre-covid in Q2 FY’22.
Aditya Harkauli, Chief Business Officer, Indifi said, “Firstly, not only is sound risk management at the heart of our operations but we believe that it is fundamental to the continuity of business. Our continued reliance on a deeply verticalised and segment specific underwriting/ account management approach, helped to pick up and assess the differential impact of covid related disruptions across borrower segments. This enabled a pivot towards segments and borrower profiles of choice.”
Indifi also revealed that MSME borrowers were seen to be increasingly seeking presence-less modes for meeting their credit needs and this is where Indifi, with its homegrown digital platform, stood ready to serve. What specifically saw acceleration amongst Indifi borrowers was the increasing comfort with features such as CKYC/OKYC, E-Sign, Video Sign, E-NACH, etc. that contributed to a steep 200 per cent rise in the number of borrowers closing all formalities for loan disbursal directly into their accounts, online on the platform itself – without any recourse to physical interaction.
Lastly, with the heightened uncertainty as the pandemic continues to loomover, MSME borrowers have vocalised the need for credit on more flexible terms to cope up with disrupted business cycles. Indifi has used the opportunity to mainstream ‘line of credit’ as a form factor (which comes configured with multiple repayment options) to cater to this strongly articulated need. Both facilities – term loan and line of credit – saw a growth in the disbursals through the April-Sept period.