Monexo to raise USD 10 mn to expand P2P lending biz in India

Hong-Kong-based Monexo Innovations, the latest entrant in the Indian peer-to-peer lending space, plans to raise about USD 10 million by December 2016 to scale up its business in India and South East Asian countries.

"We are looking to raise about USD 10 million by December and talks are in advance stage with PE investors. We have sales office in Chennai and looking at opening 10 offices in major cities across the country," Monexo Founder and Chief Executive Officer Mukesh Bubna told PTI here.

"Also, we are looking at venturing into overseas market," he said.

Further, Bubna said "we are eyeing major share in the peer-to-peer lending business having potential of growing to Rs 10,000 crore in the next five years" and the company is targeting Rs 300 crore business in the first year of operations.
 

The recent P2P lending consultation paper issued by RBI is set to change the landscape and the team at Monexo is engaged with the regulators as well as across the Traditional players and P2P lending industry, he added.

Peer to peer lending (P2P) is growing rapidly in the US and Britain. China's peer-to-peer lending sector has emerged as the largest and most dynamic online alternative finance sector in the world.

Monexo is now fully functional in Hong Kong markets with 2 products for borrowing - Rental Discounting and Salary Loans. Monexo's team of professionals are poised to bring to India innovative financial products that help investors earn better returns and borrowers bring down their cost of credit, Bubna said.

After Hong-Kong and India, the company is also looking at entering into Singapore, Philippines and Indonesia.

Currently, Monexo, which unveiled operations last month in India, has a few hundred lenders registered on its platform where borrowers can avail loans at interest rates in the range of 13 per cent and 30 per cent, depending on various parameters.

The company used "data and science with as many as 600 data points" to evaluate the credit worthiness of the borrower. It rates them in the band of M1 and M8, with M1 being the highest rating.