New Delhi, June 14: Despite having many other businesses in their kitty Muthoot Pappachan Group (MPG) is more recognized as a gold loan company and it is going all out to make this business for attractive, said Vasudevan Ramaswami, Chief Operating Officer, Muthoot Fincorp.
“We have repositioned gold loans to make it more appealing to the customers as far as their life cycle needs are concerned. They have been rebranded as value-based loans, for example we have five brands essentially based on value of loans. Like for below Rs 1 lakh, then Rs 1 lakh to Rs 3 lakh, Rs 3 lakh – Rs 8 lakh and above Rs 8 lakh,” he said in an interview with Outlook Money.
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Essentially the company wants to harp on the point that gold loan should not be used only for emergency purposes, it can be used for planned purposes as well. One can support children’s education or even start a new business with it. “How do we participate in the customers’ entire life-cycle journey…that is what we have introduced last year in a manner that starts appealing to these customers.”
“Another significant aspect that we have brought in is how digitally one can top up loans by 24x7 SMS offering, so that one does not have to visit the branch after the first time. There are two advantages to it – they can keep the gold in safe custody, they do not have to take the full loan, they can keep taking the loan as and when they want through this SMS transaction, which automatically transfers the money,” Ramaswami said.
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“We have also introduced good credit discounts. You pay promptly I will able to pay you a rebate, you pay me digitally instead of cash and I will be able to pay you some benefit and the longer you keep the loan you will be able to get some benefits as far as the loan is concerned,” he said.
“All these put together we want to make our customers financially inclusive. We want to give features and benefits as you are participating and repaying well and utilise these funds as and when it is needed,” he added.
Excluding the banks, the non-banking financial companies (NBFC) sector will be Rs 75,000-80,000 crore and MPG is around 14 per cent of that.
The gold loan industry is growing around 12-15 per cent and MPG has grown around 16 per cent in 2018-19.
