Neogrowth Credit eyes 45% jump in loan book size next fiscal

The city-based credit company closed FY20 with a loan book of Rs 1,350 crore and hopes to marginally better it this year, but still shy of crossing Rs 1,400 crore, Piyush Khaitan, the founder and managing director of Neogrowth Credit, told PTI on Wednesday.Neogrowth Credit, started in 2013, is funded by a clutch of global and domestic investors such as the Omidyar Network, Aspada Investment, Khosla Impact, Accion Frontier Inclusion Fund, Quona Capital, IIFL Seed Ventures Fund and Leapfrog Investments.

Small businesses-focussed non-banking lender Neogrowth Credit is looking at around 45 per cent growth in loan book next fiscal at Rs 2,000 crore, given the demand side momentum it is witnessing since the past few months. The city-based credit company closed FY20 with a loan book of Rs 1,350 crore and hopes to marginally better it this year, but still shy of crossing Rs 1,400 crore, Piyush Khaitan, the founder and managing director of Neogrowth Credit, told PTI on Wednesday.

Neogrowth Credit, started in 2013, is funded by a clutch of global and domestic investors such as the Omidyar Network, Aspada Investment, Khosla Impact, Accion Frontier Inclusion Fund, Quona Capital, IIFL Seed Ventures Fund and Leapfrog Investments. But Khaitan refused to share the quantum of their investments or the equity ownership, including his own in the company citing confidentiality agreements.

Neogrowth lends in the Rs 2-75 lakh bucket but average weighted loan size is only Rs 6-8 lakh with average pricing of 24 per cent and its average loan tenor is 18 months.

''We hope to close FY21 loan book around Rs 1,400 crore. We had closed last year at Rs 1,350 crore. We hope to touch Rs 2,000 crore next fiscal and scale the Rs 3,000 crore mark in FY23,'' Khaitan said basing his optimism to the recent loan demand which has even surpassed the pre-lockdown days as businesses begin to normalise. Since December, ''our loan book is running well, much better the pre-lockdown days'', he said. The lockdown has not impacted the asset quality very badly as they chose to shutter disbursement in the frist six months of the fiscal, with gross NPAs averaging at 3 per cent and the net bad loan ratio under 1, he said.

Though tech-based, the company, which has branches in 28 cities across 15 states which contribute 85 per cent of credit demand, he said. It has a customer base of 28,000 MSMEs across 70 industry sub-segments.

It has launched a new digital platform 'Digibizz' to drive its credit demand and is eyeing to tap 2 lakh customers over the next fiscal with this application.

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