Fino Payments Bank, which has begun offering credit through NBFCs to its customers, plans to expand its product offering but is not looking to convert to a small finance bank.
“We are already offering credit to our customers through a tie up with KreditBee. We are also offering insurance. We plan to have a much bigger bouquet of products including mutual funds, recurring deposit, fixed deposit and international remittances,” said Rishi Gupta, Managing Director and CEO, Fino Payments Bank.
The payments bank is also looking at deposits, for which pilots are going on at the moment.
The bank has launched products including subscription current accounts, AEPS cash deposit, Aadhaar Pay, PPI cards, Gift cards and UPI P2M in the first half of the fiscal.
But conversion to a small finance bank is not on the cards anytime in the near future though the bank’s personal loan offering is doing well.
“We don’t want to get into credit business on our own books as of now. Credit is a completely different area. We don’t have the expertise. We don’t have the team,” Gupta told BusinessLine .
Fino Payments Bank was recently listed on the bourses. It also announced its second-quarter results reported a 74.5 per cent increase in its net profit at ₹7.89 crore.
Asset-light model
The bank remains upbeat about its business model despite many of its peers facing pressures in maintaining profitability.
“Growth and profitability are built into the Fino model. We don’t need to compromise on one to focus on another,” Gupta said, adding that the bank has been able to set up a very asset-light ecosystem.
“We are focused on the business. We have a good mix of profit, good mix of high margin as well as low margin products model,” he further said, adding that the bank is confident of being able to maintain its growth trajectory.
The capital raised as part of the listing is being used on building a bigger technology stack as well as for marketing and branding.
“We are investing in infrastructure, on software and digital ecosystem. We have already started to build a team. There is a lot of products on the digital side as well,” Gupta said.
As of September 30, 2021, the bank has 8.1 lakh merchants and 34 lakh, customers.