PremiumBengaluru: Flipkart co-founder Sachin Bansal's financial services startup Navi has launched a mobile app to provide instant personal loans targeted at consumers in the middle-income segment.
The Navi lending app will provide instant loans of up to ₹5 lakh with repayment tenures of up to 36 months. The loan process is done completely using digital and contactless process for customers.
The app is currently available for download on the Android platform, through which customers can check their eligibility, select the loan and EMI amount, and enter their PAN and Aadhaar card number to receive the loan amount in their bank account within minutes.
The process is entirely paperless and does not require customers to upload any documents like payslips or bank statements. Paperless lending is made possible due to recent advancements in know your customer (KYC) norms and due to the availability of rich consumer data.
To assess loan applicants and prevent fraudulent transactions, app-based lenders source customer data from trading and brokerage accounts, and credit and debit card transactions directly from banks. Besides, a customer’s employment information and credit history are also accessed from credit bureaus approved by the Reserve Bank of India.
The Navi lending app was launched in Beta mode in the midst of the lockdown in April. With most people unable or reluctant to venture out and banks offering only basic services during the lockdown, customers who needed loans for medical and family emergencies, education fees, or other urgent needs depend on app-based loans.
During the beta phase, most of Navi’s loans were disbursed to customers’ bank accounts in less than 10 minutes, while some customers were able to avail loans in less than 5 minutes from the time they installed the app. The Navi app is now out of Beta mode and has been launched officially.
“With more and more people opting for online channels and apps for all their needs - including financial services - in the past few months, the Navi lending app received strong response from Tier 1, 2 and 3 towns during the Beta phase. This gave us the insights and confidence to launch it officially in such a short time. We are now scaling the app across 150 cities in India," said Samit Shetty, chief executive of Navi Finserv, the NBFC owned by Navi.
Bengaluru-based Navi was founded by Bansal in May, 2018 after he moved out of Flipkart. Bansal has also backed several tech startups across sectors in his personal capacity, while Navi has also been making strategic investments in several financial sector firms in the last few months.
In April, Navi had raised ₹204 crore in equity capital from Mumbai-based private equity firm Gaja Capital and other ultra-rich individual investors. This was a second fund-raise following a ₹3,226-crore funding led by Bansal and other individual investors in March.
