PayPal backed ftcash Ties up with 15+ NBFCs to offer loans to its partner merchants based on Aadhar

Underlining its commitment to making India a financially inclusive economy and making working capital loans more accessible to smaller merchants across the country, ftcash, one of India’s fastest growing financial technology ventures, has tied up with 15+ NBFCs to provide working capital loans to its merchant partners. With an interest rate of 18-30% per annum and a ticket size between Rs 25,000 to Rs 5 lakh, the company aims to meet the regular credit requirement for small retailers who otherwise depend on unorganized sources of finance such as moneylenders to meet the demands of their business. At present, catering to over 20,000 merchants on its platform leveraging its differentiated offerings, ftcash has already lent around INR 2 crore to 150 merchants in a pilot and has seen a strong repayment trends.

The company is planing to disburse INR 150 cr loans by March 2018. Founded in June 2015, ftcash plans to get profitable by December 2019 and increase its merchant base to 150,000 by this year end.

Speaking on the announcement, Deepak Kothari, ftcash, said, “Till now, small merchants have been facing challenges in acquiring unsecured loans at low-interest rates. We are rolling this loan service out for all the 20,000 merchants on our platform after successfully completing the pilot. With the loan amount ranging from INR 25,000 to INR 5 lakhs, merchants can get higher loan amounts based on either repayment of smaller ticket loans or basis their increasing usage of the payments platform. The objective is to tap the under-banked and unbanked segments. ftcash has set a target to acquire 1 million merchants in the next two years.”

ftcash primarily serves micro-merchants, MSMEs, home-based entrepreneurs, mom-and-pop stores, and businesses by facilitating both payments and loans. It allows them to repay loans directly through the platform. It also creates unique and proprietary transactional data, which can be leveraged to provide institutional finance to these merchants. After launching its operations in Hyderabad, Jaipur, Surat and Pune recently, the company is now aiming to expand its physical footprint to four more cities in the next 6 months.