MobiKwik hails SEBI for opening MF for mobile wallets

Hailing Securities and Exchange Board of India’s (Sebi) decision to allow investors to buy mutual fund schemes for up to Rs. 50,000 through digital wallets, payments system MobiKwik on Wednesday said that it is a big fillip for the nascent Indian fintech industry as it will work towards tying up with Asset Management Companies to offer their products.

“Possibilities are endless, and SEBI has just taken the first step in making fintech market even bigger and powerful in India. This will not just make investing in mutual funds easier but also promote the habit of savings amongst millennial,” said founder and CEO MobiKwik, Bipin Preet Singh.

He added that people as young as 19-20 years old want to plan their investments and paying a sum of Rs 500 or Rs 1000 a month, that too on your smart phone, is just very convenient for such a big goal.

“ SEBI‘s decision will help channelize households’ savings into capital market and promote digitalization in mutual funds for the young generation,” he added.

As of now, 42 fund houses in India manage assets worth Rs. 19 lakh crore, out of which, Rs 5.54 lakh crore belongs to mutual funds.

The Gurgaon-based mobile wallet firm MobiKwik is also in talks to partner with non-banking finance companies ( NBFCs) to offer micro-lending to its users, and is also looking at launching a mutual fund portfolio going forward as it is focusing on the offline category and is looking to expand the merchants on board to 10 million by end 2017 from the current 1.5 million.

“MobiKwik expects to turn profitable by mid-2018 and plans to diversify revenue streams by offering financial products like loans and mutual funds,” added Bipin.

However, on the customer acquisition front, Mobikwik has currently 55 million users, and expects to double this to about 150 million users by 2017 end.