Xiaomi launches digital lending solution Mi Credit

Beijing-based electronics company Xiaomi has rolled out its digital lending solution Mi Credit in India. 

Mi Credit is the second Mi finance solution from the company after Mi Pay. Xiaomi started working on Mi Credit in India in 2015 as a pilot programme and claims to have disbursed loans of over 28 crores in November 2019, the company said in a statement.

“In India, the lending industry is on an explosive trajectory. As per a recent report from CIBIL, there are over Rs 4 lakh crores worth of personal loans outstanding from nearly 1.9 crore customers, with each user accounting to an almost Rs 2 lakh of the outstanding amount. Of these 1.9 crore customers, the majority tend to avail it for medical emergencies followed by shopping, wedding, travel and education purposes,” said Manu Jain, Vice President, Xiaomi and Managing Director, Xiaomi India.

The Mi Credit serves in over 10 states spanning across 1,500 pin codes and offers personal loans of up to Rs 1 lakh. 

The company is currently planning to partner with non-banking finance companies and fintech firms like Aditya Birla Finance Limited, Money View, EarlySalary, Zestmoney and CreditVidya, for lending.

Xiaomi said that the Mi Credit app comes pre-installed on all MIUI phones, and can also be downloaded from Google play store and GetApps, Xiaomi’s own app store.

Mi Credit will compete with Capital Float, Qbera, IndiaLends, Lendingkart, Indifi, HDFC Credila and LoanTap, in this segment.

At 87%, India has the highest fintech adoption rates in the world. The country also has the second-largest fintech startup base in India, a recent report by IT body  Nasscom said. 

Xiaomi is one of the leading smartphone vendors in India, shipping as many as 100 million phones in the country over the past five years. Its recent foray in the fintech segment is seen as a part of its larger strategy to look beyond hardware, particularly in the ecommerce and finance segments. 

Mi Pay, a part of its finance play, is a UPI-based payment app available on the MIUI phones and has about 20 million registered users.