The Bengaluru-based company is gradually rolling out the product “splitStore” to its base of 15 million-20 million monthly active customers, calling it a full stack e-commerce proposition for its users.
The fintech platform will host a catalogue of products across categories such as mobiles, fashion, electronics and beauty, while its checkout will offer affordability solutions, including zero-interest, zero-fee payment installments, through potential partnerships with four to five lenders this year.
“By December, we want commerce to be 20 per cent of our revenue,” Sikaria told Business Standard.
Owning the entire shopping journey, rather than just the payment, gives the platform access to affiliate commissions on every product sold. This revenue pool is sufficient to subsidise customers’ interest costs and compensate lending partners for extending credit to new-to-credit borrowers.
“We think that the affordability gap could not be solved in India by small MDRs (merchant discount rates). It has to be a much integrated, deeper experience bringing together commerce, lending and payments together,” he said.
While a portion of its e-commerce offering will be built through direct brand partnerships, the company will leverage Flipkart’s catalogue and delivery infrastructure for the rest.
Sikaria expects a “large portion” of its existing active users to use the splitStore offering, and for the feature to act as a funnel to attract new customers.
“Flipkart is a large aggregator for us. But eventually, it will be a multi-tenanted platform, where multiple brands, multiple platforms can list their products,” he said. The launch is one of the first attempts to rebuild the “buy now, pay later” (BNPL) model inside a UPI app, with commerce, payment and credit housed together.
Sikaria described it as a “closed-loop” BNPL product, rather than an open-loop one, with super.money taking a one-third down payment upfront — a structure he said “significantly cuts down on the risk”, especially to start with small ticket categories such as fashion, as compared to electronics. He expects a larger variety of consumer durables to come on the platform over the next few months.
“splitStore is designed to avoid the possible bias that comes with a ‘buy now pay later’ proposition: there is no revolving line to over-draw, no hidden fees, and no late-fee profit motive,” the company said in a statement.
Over the past few years, BNPL fell out of favour with the Indian fintech industry, amid tighter digital lending rules and higher risk weights on unsecured credit. “Our loss rates are coming to be less than 0.5 per cent on the platform. If we are able to maintain that kind of loss rate, every lender is solved and wants to engage with us,” he said.
 "Prakash Sikaria, founder and CEO, super.money")