'The approach to credit underwriting has to change', says Lendingkart CEO

'Lendingkart has always focussed on leveraging the available technological tools to build capabilities that will be required in scaling up operations', says Harshvardhan Lunia

Lendingkart has disbursed $1 billion in loans to micro, small and medium enterprises in six years of operations. Backed by Fullerton Financial Holding, Bertelsmann, Mayfield India, Saama Capital, and Sistema Asia, it has raised about Rs 1,000 crore of equity so far. Harshvardhan Lunia, the company’s co-founder and chief executive officer, spoke to Raghu Mohan. Edited excerpts:

The pandemic has shown that physical infrastructure is no longer an obstacle to lending. What are the lessons from this phase?

The meet-and-greet model set up by the large banks is a thing of the past. It has anyway come down drastically. Everything has moved