Deutsche Bank’s former co-chief executive Anshu Jain is looking to launch a non-bank finance company in India, a news report suggested. According to the report, he is partnering with former colleague Bhupinder Singh to launch the NBFC, which will be an Indian version of San Francisco-based fintech startup SoFi to which Jain is an adviser. SoFi, started as Social Finance in 2011 offers an online platform to help match the funding needs of students wanting to study at Stanford with wealthy alumni who were ready to help. It has since grown into a full-fledged NBFC, giving cheap student loans, as well as mortgages, personal loans and wealth-management services. Technology will be the backbone of this firm, which hopes to tap India’s underserved and underpenetrated lending market by using online analytics through credit scores and data collected from Aadhaar, the report said quoting a person aware of the situation. It will be like SoFi, but an Indian version, as there will be need for brick and mortar branches — albeit a sparse network, because the endeavour would be to do a majority of the business online, said the person. The NBFC may be backed by SoftBank, as in the case of SoFi. The venture is awaiting final regulatory approvals. It has started recruiting personnel to it.
