After Future Group CEO Kishore Biyani?s proposed foray into wedding finance, leading matrimony portals like shaadi.com and bharatmartimony.com are also looking at providing similar financial services to their consumers. These portals consider making finance available to their users a huge value addition, and are open for tie-ups with finance companies, including that of the Future Group.
Says Vibhas Mehta, business head, shaadi.com, ?Wedding finance is very crucial for a place like India as there is a lot of spending here during weddings. We had a tie-up with a finance company about 2-3 years back, which used to provide wedding finance to couples and we had received a number of queries for the same. We are open to providing similar services.? Shaadi.com receives 7,000-8,000 new profiles every day.
Moreover, Bharatmatrimony.com which also gets 8,000 registrations every day, has recently launched loanwala.com in tie-up with various banks likes ICICI and HDFC among others, which would guide the couples to avail personal loan facility from these banks.
Murugavel Janakiraman, founder and CEO, Bharatmatrimony Group said, ?We are open to providing wedding finance facility which will add value to our services and benefit our consumers. We will certainly be looking at such services and if the Future Group is open to partnership with matrimony portals, we would definitely approach them.?
According to industry estimates, the Indian wedding market is worth Rs 50,000 crore and is growing at 25 % annually.
Depending on the size and grandeur, a wedding can cost anywhere between Rs 5 lakh-10 crore.
Even overseas, there are personal loans available, but no wedding loans, making this a completely new concept.