94% retailers prefer digital self-serve EMI financing: Pine Labs and ZestMoney Survey.

ZestMoney is an AI-based EMI financing platform and Pine Labs is Asia’s leading merchant commerce platforms. Today they released reports of a merchant survey that was conducted recently where retailers were quizzed based on EMI adoption post the Covid crisis.

The survey states that though the EMI solutions are under increasing demand, the traditional consumer financing models are under severe stress. NBFCs have been relying on agents at the stores to offer credit, but the restrictions imposed due to COVID-19 are leading to the failure of this model. The survey also covered offline merchants who deal with electronics and consumer durables. The demand for electronics and household appliances are considerably higher.

Here are some highlights of the merchant survey:

• Majority of 94% merchants feel that digital self-served EMI solutions will be more beneficial in these moment of crisis.

• 72% of retailers have been promoting EMI schemes during lockdown at outlets

• 63% of the merchants engaged in home deliveries from stores to increase the demand

• 85% of the merchants surveyed had finance executives from NBFCs at stores before lockdown

• 60% of retailers stated that finance agents have stopped visiting after the lockdown.

• 90% of those surveyed want to help the customers in  availing EMI options themselves

Lizzie Chapman, Co-founder and CEO, ZestMoney said in the current economic crisis people will use EMI financing to meet their needs. The COVID has hampered majority of the traditional models, which further states the need of digital transformation. In this crisis the merchants are understanding the value of self-serve models to put their business back on track.  ZestMoney focuses on building a robust, fully automated tech platform to  make the entire process much easier for the consumer and merchant network.

B Amrish Rau, CEO, Pine Labs said that they are working  with the leading brands in the country and are trying to provide the most economical EMI solutions to their customers. They are trying to enable growth for the small merchants and traders by giving them with installment payments even in these difficult times. Their collaboration with ZestMoney will help  create new lending lines on top of their existing well-integrated cards platforms.