Small business-focused digital lender Indifi Technologies Thursday appointed former SBI chairman Rajnish Kumar as an adviser for the company’s growth strategy and for guidance across the financial services domain.
Kumar is also currently a board member of HSBC Asia Pacific, L&T Infotech Hero MotoCorp and Dun & Bradstreet. He has also served as the managing director of the National Banking Group and the MD of compliance & risk at SBI.
“The MSME sector and their credit gap has been a serious problem for India. The headway that Indifi is making in this regard is important and impressive. Their ecosystem-based approach to lending has leveraged the opportune intersection of digital platforms used by MSMEs and advancement in data and tech,” Kumar said.
After being a banker at SBI for 4 decades, Kumar is currently the chairman of fintech company BharatPe that has been in the headlines recently after a tussle between the board and co-founder Ashneer Grover over alleged misappropriation of funds.
Earlier in January this year, an audio clip of Grover allegedly abusing a Kotak Mahindra Bank staff for failing to secure funds to buy shares of Nykaa during the company’s initial public offering (IPO) had surfaced online. The BharatPe co-founder reacted to the audio clip by calling it fake. On January 9, in an aftermath to to-and-fro of allegations between Grover and the board, BharatPe had said that it will take legal action against Grover.
Kumar has also been previously appointed as a non-executive director at HSBC's Hong Kong-headquartered Asia unit as a senior adviser to Baring Private Equity Asia and was also as an adviser to Kotak Investment Advisors.
Founded in 2015, Gurugram-based Indifi Tech is an online lending platform that has disbursed over 43,000 loans so far across more than 400 cities. The company was founded by angel investor Alok Mittal, former Citi, Indiabulls and ICICI Bank executive Siddharth Mahanot and Sundeep Sahi, former chief product officer at Bharti SoftBank.
“We are delighted to have Kumar join us on the advisory board. He is widely regarded as a torch bearer of digital India. This coupled with his experience and knowledge of the banking and financial services industry will be truly invaluable to the Indifi’s ambitions to spread credit inclusion amongst Indian MSMEs,” said Alok Mittal, CEO and Co-Founder, Indifi Technologies.
In November last, the company raised Rs 340 crore (around $45 million) in a mix of equity and debt financing.
