KOLKATA: Online peer-to-peer lending platform i-lend is preparing itself for a pan-India expansion and looks to raise Rs 4-5 crore from investors to finance it, founder director Shankar Vaddadi told ET.
The start-up platform presently allows borrowers and lenders in two cities to register themselves with it.
Vaddadi said that the company is waiting for Reserve Bank of India to announce the final peer-to-peer lending norms before it takes steps towards buildingpresence across the country.
It needs people at all the centres before launching all-India presence since it does physical verification of borrowers before disbursement.
The online marketplace connects borrowers who are in need of money to lenders who are ready to invest for higher returns. In other words, it is a form of crowd-funding with financial returns.
“We are looking to raise Rs 4-5 crore and in touch with prospective investors,” said Vaddadi, adding that this exercise would gain momentum once RBI finalises the rules for this market. “Investors are also waiting for RBI to finalise the regulations,” he said.
Peer-to-peer or P2P lending is an alternative lending-borrowing model to traditional financial institutions.
The RBI proposed to regulate P2P lending platforms as a separate category of non-banking finance companies. When the final guidelines come in, the regulator may say that all transactions between borrowers and lenders need to be done through banks.
Vaddadi said i-lend platform allows three investors to come together and lend money to a single borrower. It has kept borrowing rates in the range between 12% and 24%. The rate is payable by to borrower to the lender. I-lend gets 3% processing fee from borrowers and 1% fee from lenders registered with it.
It begun journey in 2013 with Rs 2.5 crore capital.
India has about 30 online P2P marketplaces including Faircent, i2iFunding and LenDenClub. These platforms essentially targets people who do not normally get loans from banks or NBFCs.
i-lend registers borrowers for personal loans from Rs 25,000 to Rs 5 lakh for duration of 6 – 36 months and a lender can invest as low as Rs 10,000. The credit worthiness of the borrowers is being judged by the service providers.
Vaddadi said i-lend has processed 380 loans so far for Rs 3 crore.
[“source-ndtv”]