Fintech BharatPe, which is looking to grow its loan book to $ 1 billion by March 2023, is set to soon launch a gold loan product for merchants and is upbeat about its supply chain finance business.

“The acceptance of small merchants and self-employed persons towards taking gold loans is well established. We are disrupting the market through our distribution, pricing, wide presence and our existing relations we have with the merchants. We are already processing payments for them and they trust us to keep the gold safe,” said Nishit Sharma, Chief Revenue Officer, BharatPe.

The fintech has already tied up with NBFCs for gold loans and will be providing doorstep as well as branch collection facilities.

“We are conducting various pilots and once we have sorted the flows well and we are ready for a multi-city launch, we will do that quickly. It is right around the corner,” Sharma said.

BharatPe also plans to raise about $ 80 million to $ 100 million in debt over the next six to nine months to grow its loan book further.

Unity Small Finance Bank, its joint venture with Centrum Group will also provide more coverage on the merchant and consumer side.

In an interaction with BusinessLine , Sharma said supply chain finance has huge potential given the requirement for short-term credit amongst merchants and small businesses and said the company plans to scale it up in the coming year.

“Through supply chain finance, we will address the flow between the merchant and his supplier. We are going up to the manufacturer and financing each leg of the supply chain. So that itself could be a huge market of receivables, financing, invoice discounting,” Sharma said, adding that BharatPe’s existing ecosystem has about 75 lakh merchants.

“Over the lifetime, we have given loans to about 3.5 lakh merchants and there is a lot of scope within this ecosystem as well to lend. Getting from $ 200 mn to $ 1 billion is very achievable,” he said.

The average ticket size of merchant loans is about ₹70,000 to ₹75,000 on a daily installment basis.

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