Happy Loans, the innovative business loan provider, on Wednesday, announced expansion of their product range with the launch of ‘Weekend Loans’ for retailers and small merchants who need working capital on weekends or during bank holidays.

This loan can be availed of on a Friday and repayment can be done on Monday, paying the interest amount only for the weekend. Aiming to close one lakh users by the end of this fiscal, Happy Loans’ new product will make a short-term credit line available to small merchants, with the option to repay it on the next working day to cut down on the interest that will become payable, Manish Khera, Founder and Managing Director, said.

Faced with increased demand, business owners often need bridge credit for inventory. However, conventional financial institutions are closed on some days. As a consequence, micro-enterprises lose out on the opportunity to grow their business even when demand is high. This is the first product designed and customised for the need of these micro-enterprises. The weekend loan initiative will facilitate specific requirements of micro-enterprises for short-term finance and they would not have to pay extra interest on days when they may not need credit, he said.

It has disbursed nearly 1,000 loans in the last 10 weeks with a target of 35,000 by December 2018. With this product, Happy Loans is targeting five million users who are small retailers and merchants across India. Khera said most micro-enterprise merchants in India are starved of the finance they need to unlock their potential completely. “We are targeting close to one lakh users by the end of this fiscal, and we are expecting that the retention rate will be greater than 80 per cent.”

Happy Loans is a digital lending platform offering business loans of as low as Rs 2,000 for as short as 30 days to 600 million users who do not have access to mainstream banking. Happy Loans are totally digital and available on tap to merchants to boost their working capital requirements. These loans are disbursed with minimal documents so that the merchants can focus on their business.

It offers flexible tenure so that merchants can settle the loan early or late (up to 90 days) without any extra charges, at just 2 per cent per month and with automated repayment methods. The company, founded in December 2016, has partnered with multiple merchant aggregators including EKO, Payworld, MSwipe, Itzcash, Ongo, InstantPay, Wapo, Farmart, and Storeking, integrating with their data and systems to identify thousands of promising micro-enterprises in over 400 locations across India.

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