After launching loans for its small and medium-sized merchants last year, BharatPe is looking to expand its financial services stack with working-capital loans, credit cards and other loan products, its newly appointed group president Suhail Sameer told MediaNama in an interview. BharatPe's was recently valued at $500 million backed by investors like Sequoia Capital, hedge fund Coatue Management and Insight Partners. With a user base of over 5 million merchants, the company is now setting its sights on becoming a digital lending app, as opposed to a payments app, and is working on new loan products with its lending partners. "We fundamentally believe that it is tough to make money in payments in India, as retailers operate at very low margins. We are pushing lending and cross-selling other services and I expect lending to contribute to at least 80% of our revenue in the times to come," Sameer said. He added that the company plans to apply for a license to become an NBFC and at some point in the future it will look at scaling to become a bank. MediaNama: What are the lending services you are looking to launch? Suhail Sameer: We are looking at launching cards, one-month cash advance, some secured lending products and distributor financing going forward. All loan requests below ₹10 lakh made by a merchant on BharatPe's network are funded by P2P lenders, whereas for merchants who want a loan more than ₹10 lakh, the credit is provided by an NBFC, he explained. MediaNama:…
