Does the notorious credit scores and unending list of documents worry you while applying for a bank loan?
A Hyderabad-based fintech start-up says now one can forget all that and tap their ‘social’ score to get a loan. Customers can get a ‘need loan’ in flat one minute — at any time of the day and at a lower interest rate than personal bank loans.
VoteforCash, based at T-Hub incubator, has eliminated the human intervention in the loan disbursement space as it vows to disrupt the highly hassle-ridden finance sector.
The peer-to-peer loans on offer range from 1,000 to 30,000 lakh with a duration of 1-90 days. Repayment has to be made on the mutually agreed upon date.
It offers education loans, too, through a different window.
“All we want is your basic KYC (know your customer) documents such as residence proof, PAN card, bank statement and salary slip. It takes about 23 minutes to run the data against our proprietary software solution to decide whether you get a membership or not,” Keerthi Kumar Jain, founder of the Luharia Group that promotes the start-up, told.
The algorithm built by the firm analyses information from 187 data points, sifting through an individual’s social (networks) and banking history. After the one-time approval, people can take loans within a minute or two at a monthly interest rate of 1.5 per cent for business loans and 3 per cent for individual ‘need loans’.
The start-up doesn’t handle money. People who can spare a minimum of Rs. 20,000 can become a lender on the platform. The firm takes 20 per cent of the proceeds, leaving 80 per cent to the lenders.
There are over 100 players operating in the peer-to-peer lending space. “But most of them follow the traditional methods; only some depend on technology. We would like to disrupt this space,” Jain said.
“We have about 100 lenders on board with a commitment of Rs. 6 crore funds. We have disbursed Rs. 32 crore so far through 19,000 loans.”
The firm, which has only nine employees, is planning to raise $1 million in venture capital or angel funding as it plans to expand its operations.
Source: Business Line
