Clix Capital Services has raised $40 million (Rs 280 crore) from existing investors AION Capital and promoters Pramod Bhasin and Anil Chawla.. Pramod Bhasin and his partner Anil Chawla, were both former CEOs of GE Capital India and Asia and they took over the commercial lending and leasing business of GE Capital in the country and renamed the entity Clix Capital Services.
AION Capital is also an entity promoted by Pramod Bhasin and Anil Chawla.
Clix has fashioned itself as a digital lending agency and is an authorized non-banking finance company (NBFC). The company claims to have a customer base of 4 million, built over three years since Clix got formed. They have disbursed loans to the extent of Rs 5,000 crore, which they hope to lift by at least 10% before the financial year ends in March 2020. The capital base Clix started with was $250 million (Rs 1,800 crore).
The funds freshly inducted will be used in the expansion of the operation beyond the 12 cities they have a presence in currently. The company wants to diversify into retail lending where it sees a lot of potential and wants to build that component to 70% of its portfolio. The company may consider acquiring companies in the space looking into the situation many NBFCs are going through.
The promoters must have been encouraged by some of the fintech startups which have done very well focusing on retail lending and others on lending to the MSME sector, a large section of which finds it hard to obtain loans from the banks. Clix is trying to follow the same route tapping on the opportunities in lending to the MSMEs and other deserving cases. “Sound risk management practices and a heavy focus on data-driven decision-making help the company maintain great portfolio quality”, claims the company.
The five products identified by Clix Capital Services to pursue over the next few months include Corporate Finance, Equipment Finance & Leasing, SME Finance, Consumer Finance, and Housing Finance. Fintech startups have created new benchmarks in cutting down on the time consumed in evaluating a loan application and approving or rejecting it, all online. Clix and all other digital lending agencies will have to better that to remain competitive.