Lending Startup StashFin Partners With Fullerton India In $15 Mn Deal

Delhi-based online lending startup StashFin has partnered with Fullerton India for $15 Mn onward lending. The funds will help StashFin and Fullerton expand reach and create better efficiencies.

Earlier, the company has raised $9.32 Mn in two rounds of funding including $4.32 Mn in debt (July 2018) and $5 Mn in pre-series A (June 2017). Fullerton India and StashFin claim that the partnership will meet the demand of their expanding target market.

Founded in 2016 by Tushar Aggarwal, StashFin offers online personal loans to salaried individuals. The ticket size of the loan ranges from INR 10K to INR 3 Lakh with repayment periods starting at three months.

StashFin: Loans To Salaried Individuals

Nishant Jasapara, head of digital business, Fullerton India said, “The synergy between Fullerton and StashFin aims to drive the digital experience of the consumers and evolve to one of the finest platforms. The association will help the customers fulfil their borrowing needs online without having to worry about the hassles of logistics or endless paperwork around getting access to finance”.

The product is also a flexi-credit line which the customer can use as and when required as against a traditional personal loan. The company claims that customers acquired through the partnership with Fullerton can withdraw funds 24/7 to the card from the available line 24/7.

The company is operational in  Mumbai, Pune, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Indore, Chandigarh, and Delhi-NCR.

Aggarwal said, “This partnership will help us expand our footprint to the under-served and unserved parts of India.” He believes that the benefits of borrowing through a platform like StashFin are quick approvals, low processing fees, completely secure processes, minimum documentation needed, flexible payback terms and instant disbursal.

Online Lending Market In India

With nearly 500 Mn Indians connected by smartphones and as part of the digital economy, the lending community has been quick to offer their services online.

A 2018 BCG report said that the country’s digital lending market has the potential to become a $1 Tn (INR 71 Lakh Cr) opportunity in the next five years. Of this, personal lending is estimated to grow to a $50 Bn market, growing at a rate of 30% every year. A 2017 EY report — The Battle For The Indian Consumer of 2017 said that India’s adoption index for lending is 20% as compared to global 10%.

Along the lines of digital lending, players such as ZestMoney, AyeFinance etc have been providing loans to B2B and B2C loans i.e. to SMEs as well as individuals while players such as LoanTap, Credy EarlySalary, Qbera, PaySense, i2iFunding, enable B2C i.e. customer loans.

Inc42 in its Annual Tech Startup Funding report 2018 noted that fintech startups raised $1.4 Bn across 121 deals in the year with top-five funding grossers being PolicyBazaar, Pine Labs, LendingKart, PhonePe and ClearTax.

Update: May 7, 2019| 5 PM

An earlier version of the story cited media reports which said that StashFin has raised $30 Mn debt from Fullerton Financial Holdings. After publication, Fullerton reached out to Inc42 and said that the actual partnership is worth $15 Mn. On reaching out to StashFin, the startup’s representative said that they are currently unclear about the details of the deal. The amount has been changed in the story according to Fullerton’s statement.

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