Inditrade Capital, a digitally-driven lending non-banking finance company, expects its agriculture and micro-finance business to double this year given the general liquidity concern in the industry.

The company is looking to double its agriculture commodity and micro-finance book to Rs 800 crore this fiscal.

In agriculture commodity, Inditrade lends only to non-essential commodities that are traded on the exchange platform and hedges its risk simultaneously. It competes with banks in agriculture lending by providing higher loan to value of 16 per cent compared to 12 per cent by banks.

Sudip Bandyopadhyay, Group Chairman, Inditrade Capital, told BusinessLine that farmers’ realisation generally goes down as they do not have the financial power to hold their produce for longer periods of time and most of them dump their produce in the market just after the harvest, leading to a price crash.

In a bid to enhance farmers’ holding power, the company offers flexible repayment options by allowing them to close the account even by selling the pledged commodities, he said.

Over 800 farmers, who are registered as Inditrade’s customers, store their produce across over 400 exchange-accredited warehouses. Against this produce, Inditrade provides loans of up to Rs 2 crore for three months at about 16 per cent interest.

In micro-finance, it has over two lakh customers availing loans of Rs 30,000 for 50 weeks at the RBI advised rate of 22-25 per cent. The lending book in micro-finance covering eight states is expected to touch Rs 800 crore against Rs 430 crore logged last year.

Inditrade, which ventured into micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) lending last year, targets kirana stores in Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad and Chennai to provide loans against their point-of-sale receivables at 18-22 per cent interest rate. The MSME lending book is fast-growing and is set to touch Rs 250 crore this year, against Rs 100 crore earlier, he said.

Inditrade is most bullish on digital micro loans of Rs 5,000 to Rs 25,000 for a month at interest rates of 18-24 per cent. Launched in January, digital lending to the salaried class has already attracted one lakh customers and the demand is growing exponentially to touch Rs 100 crore. The capital deployed is also limited as it is churned rapidly.

Inditrade has recently applied for housing finance licence with the RBI. It plans to lend Rs 5-25 lakh in the affordable housing sector. In April, it started giving educational loans of Rs 10,000 to its micro-finance customers.

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