Xiaomi To Launch Mi Credit In India Offering Quick And Easy Digital Loans

Xiaomi recently launched its Mi Credit in India. This service offers loans from Rs 5,000 to Rs 100,000 with a reportedly low-interest rate. Before India, the same service was introduced in Xiaomi’s home country China.

According to Xiaomi, the company will rely on its partnership with startups like Aditya Birla Finance Limited, ZestMoney, Money View, and CreditVidya to decide who can get these loans.

Those who wish to have credit from the service will have to allow the Mi Credit app accesses to their call logs, texts, and other details so that it can determine whether they can have the loans. The whole process is expected to take just a few minutes.

Mi Credit has several partners with this service, so the chances of users getting credit are high. Once the first credit has been given, when they need more, the process will be as simple as pressing a button. For startups, those who join Xiaomi in this project can have access to a large user base.

According to Xiaomi, the Mi Credit app will come pre-installed on the company’s devices. For those who do not use Xiaomi smartphones, the app can be found on the Google Play Store. Unfortunately, it is not for iPhone users.

Since the ratio of Indians having credit cards is just three on one hundred, only a small number of people in the nation have a credit score to secure a loan. This has created an opportunity for startups to find a substitute for this score.

For now, Mi Credit is available in ten Indian states. The company has plan to expand the service to the other areas of the country by March 2020.

No startups which have participated in this plan have commented on this launch. Depend on what each company can offer with this partnership, the agreement will change accordingly.

Xiaomi said that what its partners offer had been deeply integrated into the Mi Credit app, meaning users can have information like a credit score in real-time.

Before this recent launch, the app was tested with a pool of Indian users last month. During this period, loans of a total of 280 million rupees were disbursed.

This is the latest addition to Xiaomi’s ecosystem in India. The service is introduced amid reports of a record slow in quarterly growth for Xiaomi. This might be the reason why the company is looking to diversify its portfolio and lessen the dependence on smartphones and other hardware to make a profit. What it turns to are advertisements and online services.

One of the products that are getting a lot of attention from the company is Mi Finance. Earlier this year, the company said that it was seeking diversification by turning to more vertical industries, including finance, e-commerce, and gaming.

A few months ago, Mi Pay was launched as part of the ecosystem of Mi Finance. It is a payment app with the backing of UPI. So far, it has gained a total of 20 million users in India.

According to Hong Feng, the co-founder of Xiaomi, it has gasped the behaviors of consumers in the country. He also said that it was a strength the company intended to take advantage of to expand Mi Finance globally. India is a prospect market for digital lending as the market is expected to reach $1 trillion in 2023. This was why Xiaomi had the reason to be confident that Its Mi Credit and Mi Pay can bring a revolution to the fintech industry in India.