Pine Labs is Betting Big on the EMI Story: Announces a Strategic Alliance With SBI

/ -- Pine Labs, a merchant-focussed company, today announced its plans to further strengthen its Equated Monthly Instalment (EMI) business. The company also announced a new addition in its ecosystem of bank partners with the strategic alliance with State Bank of India (SBI), India's largest bank with over 15,000 branches and 300+ million debit cards. This partnership will enable SBI to extend EMI facility to its existing debit card customers via Pine Labs' point-of-sale (POS) machines at 40,000+ merchants and stores in 1,500+ cities.

Pine Labs had entered a similar alliance last month with Federal Bank, a leading private sector bank. The alliance was aimed at enabling 5.7 million[1] Federal Bank debit card holders to avail EMI at the Pine Labs terminals, instantly. It had also recently partnered with Bank of Baroda to offer EMI to the bank's debit card holders. Speaking on the association, Venkat Paruchuri, Chief Product Officer, Pine Labs said, "EMI as a category is growing exponentially for Pine Labs. Today, Pine Labs enables equated monthly instalment (EMI) offering for over 35 million eligible debit card holders and over 45 million credit card holders. The affordability offering not only appeals to the shoppers from a convenience and affordability standpoint, but also helps merchants convert store walk-ins to sales and increase ticket size. We will continue to strengthen the debit card EMI proposition by adding more issuers in the near future."
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[1] Source: RBI Data for May 2019