India’s financial services sector is expected grow at a CAGR of 19-21 per cent in three-five years, according to Aditya Birla Capital Digital (ABCD) Chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla.

“The financial services sector is expected to outpace GDP growth by 2X in the next five5 years. The three largest components —credit, investments and insurance — are expected to grow at a CAGR of 19-21 per cent, 20-22 per cent, and 10-12 per cent, respectively over the next three-five 3 to 5 years,” Birla said.

Aditya Birla Capital, under its newly-launched D2C platform Aditya Birla Capital Digital (ABCD) has applied for a PPI (Prepaid Payment Instrument) licence from the Reserve Bank of India and is awaiting the regulatory go-ahead.

“We have submitted the application,” said Pankaj Gadgil, MD & CEO of Aditya Birla Housing Finance Ltd and Group Head - Digital, Payment and Analytics at Aditya Birla Capital. He added that once the licence is received, the wallet will act as another touch point to enable ease of transactions for customers.

PPIs are instruments that facilitate purchase of goods and services, conduct of financial services, enable remittance facilities, etc., against the value stored in instruments such as cards or wallets.

Ease of use

“The eventual plan is to route a bulk of transactions, at least UPI payments, through the wallet as that seems to be a preferred mode of choice for customers,” a senior official told businessline on the sidelines of an event to launch the ABCD mobile platform.

Payments is the first touch point for most customers and usually sees the most volumes of transactions. It then makes sense to offer a comprehensive product to allow for most transactions within the ecosystem, both from the perspective of data collection and ease of use, the senior official added. 

The ABCD platform offers 22 products and services across payments, investments, lending to insurance. The target audience is the ‘First Income to First Kid’ customer base, the company said.

On subscription-based device strategy for soundboxes and EDC machines on the payments side, which are being rolled out by peers such as Bajaj Finance and Jio Financial, Gadgil said that the platform is currently in early stages and the payments suite will continue to evolve and grow, going ahead.