Cholamandalam Investment & Finance Co. Ltd. (Chola) on Wednesday announced tie-ups with three fintech companies and formation of three new business divisions to offer loans through traditional, direct-to-customer and digital partnership channels.
While Chola has tied up with BankBazaar, Kreditbee and Paytail, it also plans to add more fintechs to help customers who are economically active but not having adequate access to formal credit, the company said.
Chola is also in advanced stage of discussions with more fintechs. The company is expecting to go live with these partnerships over the next 3-4 months, said chairman Vellayan Subbiah.
“The broader plan is to leverage our more than 40 years of lending experience and 1,100 branch network to grow each segment rapidly over the next few years. We believe that these partnerships will help us in large scale customer acquisitions and drive our next wave of growth,” he said.
Chola said it had picked up 70% stake in Payswiff Technologies Pvt. Ltd. through a strategic investment of ₹450 crore. Consumer & Small Enterprise Loan (CSEL), Secured Business & Personal Loan (SBPL) and SME Loan are the firm’s new business divisions.
Under CSEL, Chola would provide personal loans to salaried and self-employed professionals, term loans and flexi loans to small enterprises in manufacturing, trading and services segments. The SBPL vertical would offer loans to self-employed non-professionals, through traditional channels, while the SME vertical would provide term loan and working capital finance, equipment finance and supply chain finance.
