India’s Snapdeal acquires RupeePower, launches financial services marketplace

Snapdeal today announced it acquired a majority stake in RupeePower, a financial products distribution platform. RupeePower will be integrated into Snapdeal’s newly launched financial services marketplace. Further terms of the deal were not disclosed.

As a result, Snapdeal customers will now be able to apply for loans through the ecommerce site. RupeePower will use its credit comparison, matching, and processing tech and its network of banks and financial institutions to find the loans best suited for those customers. In a canned statement, Snapdeal co-founder and CEO Kunal Bahl says:

Realizing the various difficulties that consumers face while deciding and purchasing financial products/services and the challenges that companies face whilst reaching out to the ‘right’ audience, we have brought RupeePower into our family, to help solve the distribution challenges of the financial services ecosystem and make it more inclusive.

Founded in 2011, RupeePower has enabled INR 15 billion (US$240 million) in loans to date (note: it didn’t hand out those loans, just helped to match lenders with borrowers). Over the next two years, Snapdeal wants to raise that number to US$1 billion.

“The share of digital origination of credit is poised to grow from today’s 7.5 percent to 40 percent over the next four years, in an INR 40 trillion (US$67 billion) retail credit market growing at 20 percent annually," says RupeePower founder and CEO Tejasvi Mohanram. "Our emphasis will be on scaling RupeePower into the top match-making platform between lenders and borrowers, providing consumers with the best targeted offers and a super-simplified loan process, while ensuring lower opex and smarter credit match for lenders."

Snapdeal’s financial services market will include personal loans, educational loans, credit cards, auto loans, home loans, and extended warranties.

RupeePower is Snapdeal’s seventh acquisition to date. It previously bought up smart gifting platform Wishpicker, luxury fashion store Exclusively, and fashion discovery platform Doozton, among others.