Forum to fight for retail consumers is critical: FREED's Ritesh Srivastava

With the RBI's intervention by way of risk weighting, retail credit growth has slowed down to around 16.3 per cent year-on-year as of late November 2024

FREED, the country’s first retail debt relief platform, uses technology to assist individuals in their debt challenges. It has an active base of 8,000-10,000 customers and around Rs 450-500 crore in debt enrolled. In a telephone interview, RITESH SRIVASTAVA, founder of FREED, spoke with Raghu Mohan on why the stress in retail credit is increasing. Edited excerpts: 

How serious is the stress in retail credit, especially in the unsecured segment? 

There are forecasts that slippages are going to get elevated, and will remain so for three-four quarters. With the RBI’s (Reserve Bank of India) intervention by way of risk weighting,