Fintech juggernaut BharatPe acquired a majority stake in Mumbai-based non-banking financial company (NBFC) Trillion Loans Fintech.
According to people familiar with the situation, the deal was estimated to be worth about INR 300 Cr. In addition, BharatPe already has all of the approvals required from the Reserve Bank of India to purchase a 51% stake in the NBFC.
By making the move, BharatPe will be able to significantly expand its lending business because an NBFC licence makes it simpler and less complicated for a platform to provide loans and credit facilities. Additionally, it will give BharatPe the freedom to scale its offerings as it sees fit without being overly dependent on specific NBFCs.
Achal Mittal and Gautam Adukia created Trillion Loans, which enables customers to obtain gold loans through direct money transfers.
Curiously, Liquiloans, a P2P lending platform that has a long-standing partnership with BharatPe, was also founded by Mittal and Adukia. The P2P investment product from BharatPe, which uses Liquiloans as its power source, has even come under fire for breaking P2P lending rules. Additionally, Liquiloans collaborates closely with CRED, the fintech startup run by Kunal Shah.
Liquiloans has the RBI’s mandate for both NBFC and P2P lending licences, despite the fact that the RBI has been reticent to grant either of these licences.
Achal Mittal is the son of former RBI official Ajit Mittal, who worked there for nearly two decades, according to a report by Livemint. Indiabulls Housing Finance’s board of directors currently includes Ajit Mittal.
Despite all of this, the action is positive for BharatPe, which has been vying for an NBFC licence for nearly four years. BharatPe previously attempted to obtain the NBFC licence in 2019, but the application was denied by RBI.
