Fintech firm BharatPe now includes a gold loan segment for its merchant partners, as it forays into secured credit, while it is known to offer unsecured small-ticket credit products.

BharatPe has partnered with a few NBFCs to launch gold loans, which would grant loans of up to Rs 20 lakh against a gold commitment.

BharatPe says that the service is currently accessible to merchant clients in Delhi-NCR, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad, and it plans to expand to 20 cities by the end of the year, when it intends to disburse Rs 500 crore.

Its lowest interest rate is 0.39 percent every month, which works out to 4.7 percent per year. Within 30 minutes, the loan application and disbursement are completed digitally.

It also provides doorstep and branch collection services, and consumers can take loans for six, nine, or 12 months, according to Suhail Sameer, the company's CEO, who said that a two-month pilot programme resulted in Rs 10 crore in disbursements.

BharatPe has been providing unsecured loans of up to Rs 7 lakh to offline merchants and kirana store owners since its inception. It has so far granted approximately Rs 3,000 crore to three lakh merchant partners, with credit terms ranging from three to twelve months.

“We have been able to facilitate disbursals of over Rs 3,000 crore to 3 lakh merchant partners. With Gold loan, we have ventured into the big-ticket, secured loan category”, says Sameer.

“We facilitated disbursals of Rs 10 crore during the pilot phase and will be able to facilitate gold loan disbursals of Rs 500 crore by the end of the year”, adds Sameer.

“Gold loans will enable us to further empower our merchant partners and positively impact millions of small businesses. We had conducted a pilot for the product for 2 months and the response has been very encouraging. We facilitated disbursals of ₹10 crores during the pilot phase”, adds Sameer.