OPPO Bets On Mutual Funds, Offline Presence To Foray In Fintech Segment

After attracting Xiaomi and Realme, India’s burgeoning fintech sector has now added one more Chinese smartphone maker to the list with OPPO. The company, on Monday (March 2) announced the launch of OPPO Kash, a fintech platform which will facilitate digital savings and investments, lending, and insurance. It also provides customers with a free financial report or credit score as well.

Speaking to Inc42, OPPO product and marketing VP Sumit Walia said that with OPPO Kash, the company aims to provide an end-to-end financial solution through a single window. “Currently, users have to go through multiple platforms for savings, lending, and insurance. However, with OPPO Kash, they can use these financial tools at a single place,” he added.

For the insurance segment, the company is currently providing personal loans and business loans. While OPPO Kash has partnered with Earlysalary for personal loans, it has tied-up with Lendingkart to facilitate business loans. “For personal loans, the whole journey for a user is finished inside the app only. However, for business loans, personal inspection is required which will be done by OPPO’s on-ground team” said Zafar Imam, head of OPPO Kash.

In the insurance segment, the company is currently only providing screen insurance. For this, OPPO Kash has also partnered with ICICI Lombard. Walia said that this service is only limited to OPPO smartphone users only.

While users can download the OPPO Kash application from the company’s proprietary app market on the OPPO phones, those not using OPPO phones can get the app on the Google Play Store. Moreover, the company is also pre-installing the application in its upcoming devices to tap more OPPO Kash users. It must be noted that Realme, which launched Realme Paysa earlier this year, and OPPO are part of the same company, BBK Electronics.

OPPO Kash Bets On Mutual Funds

While most other smartphone makers who have entered the fintech space have limited themselves to payments, lending, and insurance, OPPO has gone a step ahead by adding mutual funds as a savings option on the OPPO Kash platform.

For selling mutual funds, OPPO Kash has partnered with 20 asset management companies, Imam told us. He also claimed that around 90% of the mutual funds available in the market will now be sold on OPPO Kash platform with the help of these companies.

Moreover, OPPO Kash, in partnership with ICICI Prudential, has also launched a Freedom systematic investment plan (SIP) on the platform. Imam said that Freedom SIP helps users to invest as little as INR 100 which helps in achieving their long-term investment goals. “As a child, we used to save in our piggy banks. With Freedom, we want to offer digital piggy banks to our users to save for their long-term goals,” Imam added.

Tapping OPPO’s Offline Network

In India, Chinese smartphone makers such as OPPO and Vivo have invested heavily in building an offline presence which will help OPPO Kash to bring more users on the platform.

Walia said that OPPO has close to 60K stores where a company’s employee is present to sell a smartphone. With OPPO Kash in place, these employees will also help the company to scale its new financial product. “We want to leverage our reach, distribution, and sales force to go become a device and device plus services seller,” Walia added.

According to Imam, these salespersons will educate users on how they can use these financial products. This will help the company gain more customers from Tier 2, Tier 3 cities, and beyond as OPPO has a vast presence there.

As of now, OPPO Kash is planning to leverage the brand’s physical retail presence in metros, Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities in a pilot mode for six months. After the successful pilot run, the company will use a cross-selling model blending online and offline channels.

Big Target For 2025

Currently, the OPPO Kash application is in beta mode. In the next 18 months, the company is planning to add more financial tools such as payments on the platform. “Our core business is around lending, savings, and insurance but can’t look away with payments,” Walia added.

While there has been no confirmation on what payments tool will OPPO Kash integrate on the platform, Walia said that UPI is an interesting space and might be on the fintech platform as well.

By bringing most of the fintech platforms on a single platform, OPPO Kash is targetting to become a full-stack financial platform. Imam said that the company is aiming to add around 10 Mn customers and have INR 50K Cr worth assets under management (AUM).

While launching the OPPO Kash, the company has also focused on ensuring data privacy to its users. Walia said that the company is storing all the data on servers located in Mumbai and Hyderabad which makes it compliant to the drafted Personal Data Protection Bill. Moreover, OPPO Kash users are also provided with an option to control the data permissions on the application.