Last year Flipkart’s plan to enter into fintech space got stuck into a major limbo, after Supreme Court barred private fintech companies from using Aadhaar based eKYC services. However, Walmart owned company is now once again re-fueling its fintech ambition with a small pilot project. The buzz is that the company is working on creating a video to educate the customers about Know Your Customer (KYC) solution.
The educational video’s aim is to obviously help Flipkart customers in seamlessly availing instant credit facilities for buying high-end products. The e-commerce giant is currently working on digital KYC project with nearly 10,000 customers while these numbers are most likely to shoot up in coming weeks.
It is, however, a different matter that Flipkart’s NBFC license is still pending with the RBI and the current approval is only on the principle basis.
Flipkart as of now offers credit facilities through third party players like Kissht, Zestmoney, Bajaj Finance and commercial banks like HDFC and Axis Banks.
Once Flipkart does secure an NBFC license, it most probably will stop these third-party services on its platform.
E-commerce giant’s decision to enter Fintech space is least surprising given that India’s fintech market still has enough headroom to give space to more players. According to BCG’s recent report, India’s fintech market can become a massive opportunity of $1 Tn in next five years or so. This exponential growth projection is enough to make big names to seriously think about taking bet on fintech market.
Flipkart’s fintech prospects are also helped by its huge customer traction. Every day millions log into Flipkart to make an online purchase, out of which substantial number of them buy high-end products on credit basis.
Lastly, India’s home grown e-commerce company can’t be called as a totally naïve or inexperienced player in the fintech space. Its digital payment arm PhonePe is already one of the leading payment players in the industry.
