Payments bank licensee FINO PayTech ties up with Reliance Commercial Finance

Payments bank licensee FINO PayTech ties up with Reliance Commercial Finance

FINO PayTech to act as ‘Sourcing & Serving Partner’ for Reliance Commercial Finance’s

micro finance business in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh

Mumbai, February 25th, 2016: FINO PayTech (FINO), a payments technology company and operator of the largest business correspondent network in the country, today announced its tie up with Reliance Commercial Finance.

Through this association, FINO, which is gearing up to launch its payments bank operations, will provide credit to rural poor in the states of Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh in collaboration with Reliance Commercial Finance. Reliance Commercial Finance, a division of Reliance Capital Ltd., will provide loans for disbursement through FINO Fintech Foundation, an associate company of FINO PayTech.

Announcing the tie-up, Vipr Bhardwaj, Executive Vice President & Head lending business, FINO Paytech said, “This association allows us to explore synergies that exist with each other. Strategically, it is in line with our vision of offering all financial services under one roof. We are pleased to partner with Reliance Commercial Finance in its efforts to bring credit closer to poor rural masses. From payments bank’s perspective too, we believe this association will help us improve our product bouquet as we can offer credit services to our customers”.

FINO Fintech Foundation will serve as a ‘Service Provider’ and would source and service customers on behalf of Reliance Commercial Finance as part of the agreement.

“We have a strong focus under our “make India self reliant” initiative wherein we endeavor to provide financial services even in the remotest parts of the country. We have already disbursed loans worth Rs 5,000 crores since 2008 under this initiative. Our tie-up with FINO PayTech is part of our effort to continously expand our reach and grow this business manifold over the long term”, said Mr K V Srinivasan, CEO, Reliance Commercial Finance.

A pilot project has been initiated in the districts of Vidharbha region in Maharashtra, and Bhopal, Hardha, Khandwa, Vidhisha, Khargone in MP, where loans are disbursed under JLG model. As the project progresses, more districts of MP and Maharashtra are expected to be added.

Reliance Commercial Finance will offer small ticket size loans to women borrowers for a tenor up to 24 months for carrying out revenue generating activities as part of the tie-up.

“In the pilot locations, we have already disbursed more than Rs. 2.5 crore in the last couple of months. We intend to scale this up by disbursing around Rs. 500 Crore to 2.50 lakh customers by March 2017 covering 50 districts/ 3000 villages in the 2 mandated states,” added Mr. Bhardwaj.

It may be noted that since 2010, FINO has disbursed over Rs 1000 crore to more than 6 lakh rural poor across Maharashtra, MP, UP and Bihar.

In addition to offering microfinance, FINO PayTech also provides access to a range of payment services to rural customers that include banking, international remittance cash out facility, micro insurance, mobile/DTH recharges, and utility bill payments facilitated by Bill Desk and assisted ecommerce in partnership with Snapdeal. 

###

About FINO PayTech:

FINO PayTech is a payments technology solutions provider to banks, financial institutions and MFIs. Together with its extensive service delivery network of 30000 transaction points facilitates access to financial services to the unbanked and un-served segments of the population. It services over 28 million active banking customers spread across urban and rural areas in the country providing a range of financial services viz savings, remittance, insurance, credit etc. It is one of the recipients of in-principle approval from RBI to start a payments bank. (www.finopaytech.com)

About Reliance Commercial Finance:

Reliance Commercial Finance is a division of Reliance Capital with an operational presence over 90 locations in India and an AUM of 14,937 Cr as on December 31st 2015. Its product suite comprises of Business Expansion loans, Property loans, Vehicle loans, Construction Equipment Loans, Infrastructure, Microfinance and Agriculture Loans, targeted mainly towards the self-employed segment.

For more information, please contact:

####