RupeeQ CFO Forecasts $1 Trillion Digital Lending Market In India By 2029

Home-grown platform for online loans and credit cards RupeeQ aims to treble digital loan disbursements portfolio to Rs 300 crore by 2027 on the back of government's push towards high-speed internet services in semi-urban and rural areas.

Talking to PTI, Neeru Puri, Managing Director and Chief Financial Officer of RupeeQ, said, "It is estimated that total value of digital lending business in India will exceed $1 trillion over next 5 years. At RupeeQ, we expect to treble our loan disbursement portfolio by 2027, while in fiscal 2023-24 we clocked about Rs 100 crore."

According to reports, India shall have 900 million active internet users by 2025, while 56% of all new internet users will be from rural areas, and 65% of new internet users will be female.

Puri opined that the government's push on digitalisation and penetration of high-speed internet even in semi-urban and rural areas will help the company materialise its goal.

Puri said the digital lending space in India saw a phenomenal growth in value from $270 billion in 2022 to an estimated worth of $350 billion by end of next year with a remarkable compound annual growth rate of 39.5%.

In the current financial year, the digital footprint of financial services consumers would increase to 75% (from current 50%). This is primarily due to the explosion of smartphones as well as mobile internet, Puri explained.

As per a recent Boston Consulting Group's report, loan disbursement models in the last few years have seen frenetic activity.

There are a few fundamental drivers which are all coming together to turbo-charge this space.

First, consumer behaviours are changing dramatically, shaped by experiences offered by internet giants. Second, there have been some rapid technological advances, led by the ever increasing penetration of smartphones as well as the proliferation of data. Third, the regulatory environment is increasingly getting favourable with laws increasingly providing an impetus to the digital lending market.

Puri cited the fact that 890 million Aadhaar card holders are from rural India and said that in the coming years, "we shall witness a sharp rise in loan enquiries from rural areas as the digitisation will make it very simple for the rural population to get loans using e-KYC (electronic know-your-customer)."