IIFL Finance and ZestMoney partner to drive financial inclusion

By Leandra Monteiro

IIFL Finance, one of India’s largest non-banking financial companies and ZestMoney, a fast-growing digital EMI/checkout financing platform announced that they have entered a partnership to offer credit to customers.

Through this partnership, IIFL Finance as a partner will get access to a new customer base on the ZestMoney platform and play a crucial role in driving financial inclusion for a large section of people in the country.

Commenting on the partnership, Nirmal Jain, Founder, IIFL Group and Managing Director, IIFL Finance said, “We are excited to announce this partnership with ZestMoney as this will help IIFL deliver credit to customers either inaccessible to or ineligible for bank credit. ZestMoney has built a solid technology platform and captured a strong customer base through deep integration with more than 10,000 online merchant and 75,000 physical stores. With 5G and India stack, people in small towns or even rural areas can get credit in a completely paperless and without any human contact to meet their consumption or working capital requirements.”

IIFL Finance has a loan AUM of $6.5 billion and ZestMoney has disbursed $1 billion through their platform so far. Both companies expect that business through this partnership can be scaled up rapidly.

The partnership complies with the recently released RBI guidelines on digital lending. ZestMoney as a lending service provider will also work as a sourcing and servicing partner throughout the customer journey. The partnership will leverage the joint technology capabilities, Zestmoney’s reach, product delivery and IIFL’s deep capital pool, solid financial and digital underwriting expertise.

Talking about the partnership, Lizzie Chapman, CEO and Co-founder, ZestMoney said, “We are truly excited to partner with IIFL Finance Limited, one of the largest players in financial services to address the massive demand we are seeing for digital EMIs across the country.  We have always believed that for a market like India, collaboration between fintechs and financial institutions is the best way to build and this landmark partnership is a testimony to that. We have been seeing a solid demand across our online and offline partners and this partnership will help us service demand and learn from the deep financial expertise and Digital Underwriting Capabilities that IIFL has built over the last three decades.”