Online lending startup KreditBee has recorded a profit of Rs 95 crore in the first half of this financial year, matching the full year profit of FY23, as disbursement remained strong with an increasing appetite for small-ticket loans among consumers.
“What has changed is that over a period of time, the average ticket size and the tenure has increased. So, now my average tenure is somewhere around 9 months, compared to 3 months in 2020. Average ticket size has increased to Rs 21,000, which was Rs 7,000-8,000 just two years ago,” said co-founder and CFO Vivek Veda.
The company primarily operates in the unsecured personal loan segment, and has so far disbursed loans worth Rs 9,500 crore in the first half of this year, compared to the Rs 14,000 crore it had disbursed in the entire 2023. For this financial year, the company plans to increase its disburesements by at least 40-50% over the last year, with a target asset under management of Rs 7,500-8,000 crore.
It has also recently entered the business lending segment, where it currently has a loan book of Rs 400 crore, with a monthly disbursal of Rs 50-60 crore. To diversify from its online-first business model, the company is also piloting physical branches in Bengaluru.
Fintech apps that provide loans under Rs 50,000 are bearing the brunt of the RBI’s recent circular, where it increased the risk weights on unsecured consumer credit by banks and NBFCs by 25 percentage points to 125%.
This had led Paytm, large fintech player, to calibrate its exposure to small-ticket postpaid loans and focus on the expansion of high-ticket personal loans and merchant loans. However, KreditBee plans to continue in this segment.
“We will tweak our business model, wherever required, but this is the segment what we will be focusing on. We don’t foresee or we haven’t seen any challenges coming from these NBFCs we have partnered with because they understand that this is where our forte is,” Veda said.