Overview

People Lend is a peer-to-peer lending platform that brings verified borrowers and investors on one platform. Borrowers raise loan requests which interested investors fulfill, returns are directly passed on to investors. P2P lending space is flooded with middlemen, people-lend uses technology to bridge the gap in communication between the two parties. The platform also facilitates disbursement of funds and repayments, which makes it one stop solution for investors as well as borrowers, at the same time ensuring higher returns for investors and hassle- free loans for borrowers.

Challenges

Indian p2p lending space is in its very nascent stage, which makes it a tough nut to crack. People-lend started with a simple of idea of making borrowing so easy that one does not dread the tedious process of documentation, follow-ups, random checks that securing a bank loan involves. Ensuring accurate borrower verification was a prerequisite to safeguard investors interest. Enabling investors to connect with borrowers directly without having to go through regular middlemen.

Solutions

  • We created a web application which helped borrowers to raise loan requests. Interested investors could directly approach these borrowers and communicate with them using the chat based system. Payment disbursement and collection were enabled on the platform itself by integrating payment gateway solutions.
  • Borrower verification was ensured through e-kyc and e-aadhar authentication. Borrowers were provided with an ability to negotiate rate of interest being offered by the lenders without having to go away from the platform.
  • Investors could pick and choose their own set of borrowers based on borrower profiles. In order to minimise defaults and enable investors to take informed decisions borrowers were divided into four risk classes based on their income sources, background and credit score.
    Investors were provided with their own logins in the software to keep track of their reports, earnings and progress.
  • Data access and user access layers were created to ensure we have data integrity in the system.

Outcome

Building one of the very first p2p platforms out of India was an obvious challenge, we came out with flying colours. The response that People Lend has received over the month from borrowers and investors, alike, has been overwhelming. Building People Lend helped Sugoi Labs stamp its stronghold in the fintech industry, being one of the first companies to enable UPI based payments in India, a platform for p2p lending was the obvious next step.