Franklin Templeton-backed fintech firm Deal4Loans rebrands to Wishfin, eyes M&A

Lending marketplace Deal4Loans, run by Noida-based Mywish Marketplaces Pvt. Ltd, has rebranded to Wishfin as the company looks to bring loans, mutual funds and insurance products under one platform.

While Deal4Loans will continue to facilitate loan disbursals, the core offerings (personal, home and car loans), and new products, such as mutual funds, insurance and deposits, will be offered through Wishfin. The company is awaiting an insurance broking licence from the regulator. Eventually, Deal4Loans will be scrapped once the integration is complete, said Puru Vashishtha, director and board member at Wishfin who was previously an investor with Soros Fund Management.

Wishfin is also looking to acquire companies in a bid to expand and achieve its revenue targets.

"We aim to make 2-3 acquisitions by the end of this year," said Vashishtha.

Wishfin will look at acquisitions with a ticket size of sub-$10 million, though it may consider going beyond that figure provided the target company is the right fit, Vashishtha added.

To finance the acquisitions, the company will use a significant part of the $15 million it raised from Franklin Templeton International Services (India) Pvt. Ltd last year.

Targeting fintech, deep tech

In line with its product expansion plans, Wishfin is scouting for companies in the broad fintech sector with a focus on insurance tech and credit evaluation. Similarly, deep-tech companies operating in the space of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning are also on the company's radar.

"We believe the concept of credit risk pricing is going to undergo significant change and credit evaluation will become more customised. This is one of the most difficult problems to solve. Once we are able to crack that, we will go to the banks and build a quality asset book with customers who are still out of the credit-scoring system, which is still a significant majority. Hence, acquiring credit-evaluation platforms that leverage tech would be a big area of interest for us," said Vashishtha.

The company also plans to beef up the tech team, and invest more to ramp up features like chatbots, AI and machine learning.

User base, revenues

Wishfin, which claims to be profitable since inception, has 8 million registered customers, and it hopes to add another 2.5-3 million by the end of the year. It claims to be catering to customers in as many as 275 cities, and has expanded its physical presence in Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai and Pune.

The company, which has so far helped disburse loans worth Rs 11,158 crore, hopes to help facilitate disbursal of another Rs 10,000 crore across product categories by the end of this financial year.

"We expect to achieve a revenue target of $25 million by end of 2019," said Vashishtha.

Deal4Loans, which was founded in 2009, and Wishfin together offer loan comparison across six categories: home loan, personal loan, car loan, credit cards, loan against property and education loan. The platform currently has 43 lenders on board, including banks and non-banking financial companies.