Digital push for NBFCs does not find too many takers

Non Banking Financial Companies (NBFCs) attempt to tap the digital route to engage with the customer base has met with limited success, unlike banks.

A different customer base and lack of technology adoption by them has led to NBFCs not seeing an uptick in activities via the online medium. 

“We cater to consumers who do not use computers. Though we have been offering digital services on our web site, but not many of them use it. Unlike banks we are loaded in favour of the liability side. It will take time for these things to take off with our customers,” explained the head of an NBFC which caters to consumer loans.

Banking via the digital route helps the lenders in saving real estate investments and rentals. Apart from this, with the use of technology manpower and other administration costs are also brought down thus reducing the overall operational costs. This is one of the reasons that lenders have been aggressively pushing the adoption of digital medium. 

However, unlike the case of banks where with the consumers getting digitally savvy lenders don’ t have an option but to move to the online space, the NBFC consumers still prefer to bank in the offline space.

“We cater to customers who do not sit in front of computer monitors. NBFCs cater to a different customer base and this segment is not generally into computer based transactions and therefore we cater to our customers directly,” said Umesh Revankar, managing director & CEO of Shriram Transport Finance Company.

Players feel that going ahead if customers do take up the digital route it is more likely to be via mobile phones and not via the online channel.