ONDC To Launch Insurance, Mutual Fund Products In Two Months

The Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) plans to launch insurance and mutual fund products in the coming two months. 

As per Economic Times, the network also plans to unveil credit card offerings in partnership with Mastercard but is yet to set a timeframe on when it will be launched.

“We have deployed a Marine app, one insurer and two more are coming… For health (insurance) also, we are live, but the partner doesn’t have the licence. The motor (insurance) should happen in the next month or so. And MF will go live next month. We want to hit the 100-200 transactions first,” ONDC CEO T Koshy reportedly said. 

On credit card offerings, ONDC’s senior vice-president for financial Services Hrushikesh Mehta said that Mastercard has offered to volunteer to build the protocols for the credit card rollout on the network. 

“We have a community volunteer programme, if a certain company wants to help build protocol, we hold the reins and understand that we will release it to the public… Just got Mastercard who is now willing to be the volunteer and build protocols for credit card rollout,” added Mehta.

The announcement came on the day the network announced partnerships with the likes of Easypay, Paisabazaar, Tata Digital, Invoicepe, Cliniq360, Zyapaar, Indipe, Tyreplex and Paynearby to offer digital loans to users within six minutes. 

The insurance foray comes nearly a year after Inc42 reported that the network was mulling launching a bevy of financial services, including personal and SMB loans, insurance (car, health and marine), and mutual funds.

Last month, ONDC’s chief business officer (CBO) Shireesh Joshi also told Inc42 that the network has mapped out the sequence of steps to launch the credit offering. 

“Now that we have completed the test stage, we are inviting more providers of credit and providers of interest to say the network is ready, to join us and start doing business. At the moment, we have a target base number which we aim to hit before taking the service to the public at large,” he said at the time. 

The development comes at a time when ONDC has rapidly scaled up operations. The network crossed 12 Mn monthly ecommerce transactions in July, of which 4.4 Mn came from the mobility domain.

ONDC also claims to be live in over 611 cities across India with 111 network participants.