BENGALURU: Bengaluru-based online fintech start-up Qbera has launched its operations on Thursday, focusing on loans for those earning less than Rs 6 lakh per annum. With a loan processing time-frame of 24 hours, Qbera, in association with RBL Bank, claims to offer an easier and faster process compared to regular banking.
According to Aditya Kumar, founder and CEO of Qbera, its borrower segment constitutes salaried employees from over seven lakh companies, which are not listed with banks and those who are new to credit. Normally, these people would not qualify for credit in the traditional banking and NBFC space.
Kumar told Express that the start-up’s borrowers are those who earn a net salary of Rs 35,000- 40,000 a month. These salaried employees are looking at taking credits to repay credit card bills, buy second hand cars, to travel or for medical expenses.
Even though Qbera deploys some basic parameters to assess the credit-worthiness of the borrower, it is flexible compared to the standard banking procedure. When some of the nationalised banks are struggling with bad loans, Kumar said even for banks, salaried employees do not pose a risk of NPAs and these bad loans were from medium-to-large corporates. “The salaried segment performs well when it comes to credit management,” he added.
How does it work?
Once the information provided by the applicant is processed, the loan may be approved within 15 minutes to four business hours. Not much documentation is required, except for a few know-your-customer documents. Once that is done, the funds are transferred to the person’s account.
The loans sanctioned are between Rs 50,000 and Rs 5 lakh and the duration of the loan is up to three years. The interest rates charged are at 13.99 percent.
The pilot of the online lending platform, which is a product of credit exchange, was launched in February 2017 and the start-up has already received more than 5,000 applications. At present, the team is focusing on lending in Bengaluru, with plans of launching operations by April in Chennai, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Delhi national capital region.
Qbera plans to expand to 13 cities including Kolkata, Kochi, Ahmedabad and Coimbatore.