Payment firm aims to double revenue by tapping Indian market

Bloomberg

Loans of as little as $30 and life insurance policies for as low as thirty cents a month: that’s what an Indian digital-payment company wagers will double its revenue and help it break even this year.
In its 10 years of existence, One MobiKwik System Pvt has expanded from online payments into financial products including insurance, gold and mutual funds. The company, which plans an initial public offering (IPO) in the next two years, sees its diverse offerings as key to growth in the still nascent industry.
“The number of digitally paying users in India is still not more than 180 million or hardly about 10 percent of the population,” Upasana Taku, MobiKwik co-founder and chief operating officer, said in an interview in Mumbai. “There’s still a huge opportunity to tap.”
India’s overall retail credit demand is poised to grow 60 percent to $771 billion over the next four years, according to data from the Digital Lenders Association of India.
The budget announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman includes measures to boost the country’s cashless drive, taxing large cash withdrawals and forcing most companies to offer digital payments at no extra charge.

Growing Demand
MobiKwik plans to raise $50 million from an investor before its IPO, Taku said, declining to be more specific. The company counts Sequoia Capital, American Express and Cisco Investments among its marquee investors. It says it handles over a million transactions per day, with loans granted to half a million of its 107 million users so far, and sales of nearly 3,000 insurance policies daily.
The company expects revenue to reach 4.8 billion rupees in the 12 months ending next March, up from 1.8 billion rupees a year earlier, Taku said.
While the consumer payments business is still likely to account for about 60 percent of the total, financial products are seen contributing as much as a fifth in the first full year since the business was launched.