India’s P2P lender Faircent first for RBI’s NBFC-P2P certification
India-based Faircent is the first peer-to-peer (P2P) lending firm to get NBFC-P2P certification from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
A non-banking financial company (NBFC) licence is designed for firms in India registered under the Companies Act of 1956 that are engaged in the business of loans and advances.
The RBI says NBFCs are doing functions similar to banks but there are a few differences. These include NBFCs cannot accept demand deposits; and they do not form part of the payment and settlement system.
Rajat Gandhi, Faircent’s co-founder and CEO, says it is “the largest P2P lending platform in the country” and the company “played a pivotal role in helping the Indian online P2P lending sector gain regulatory recognition”.
Faircent says its platform currently has more than 40,000 registered lenders and has facilitated over 6,000 loans cumulatively.
The company, like many others, is targeting the financial inclusion market.
According to Faircent, the Indian P2P lending industry witnessed a “sudden boom in 2017, facilitated by the fintech revolution”.
It doesn’t say where it got these figures, but it expects the market to hit the $4 billion to $5 billion mark by 2023.
In Faircent’s opinion, the Indian P2P lending space currently has more than 35 “serious players”.
