Flipkart ecommerce platform begins customer lending

Flipkart, the Walmart owned Indian ecommerce company has partnered with Axis Bank to offer personal loans in a bid to boost sales. The platform, which started as an online book store, is one of India’s largest ecommerce marketplaces competing with Snapdeal and Amazon India with an ecommerce market share of around 40 percent in India. The platform operates domestically only but hosts over 1 million sellers.

Just last month, Australian homewares brand Anko expanded into India through Flipkart with over 400 products available on the platform. The Kmart house brand has already reported strong growth in the Indian market through the platform.

This expansion into personal finance enables customers to access a credit of up to 500,000 rupees, or around $9,000 AUD requiring no document submission and a 30 second approval time. Currently, the platform offers a Buy Now Pay Later option and a co-branded credit card as other financing options.

According to reports, this move into the financial sector puts FlipKart into direct competition with former subsidiary, UPI mobile payments company PhonePe which it fully separated from earlier this year. In April, PhonePe launched its ecommerce app which put them in further competition.

Both FlipKart and PhonePe are backed separately by US based Walmart. In India, Walmart operates stores as FlipKart Wholesale. In 2018, Walmart acquired a 77 percent majority stake in Flipkart for $16 billion, a time when PhonePe was still owned by FlipKart, which left the company with Walmart maintaining its majority ownership of PhonePe after the split.

This move into personal lending is expected to drive significant revenue growth for the company as it removes the immediate burden of payment, important at a time when economic strain is being experienced on a global level.

While FlipKart and its services are only available domestically in India, this move could indicate a global shift in the ecommerce realm.

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