India’s largest carmaker, Maruti Suzuki, has disbursed loans worth INR 6,500 crore online, financing over one lakh cars during the last four months via its digital platform - Maruti Suzuki Smart Finance, a top executive, told Mobility Outlook.
Shashank Srivastava, Senior Executive Director (Marketing and Sales), Maruti Suzuki, said, 'We see rapid adoption in consumers availing car loans online via our digital platform. In the last four months itself, we have financed over 100,000 cars across the country.'
“Started at one Nexa dealership in Gurugram last year with three financers, we have now onboarded 15 financiers and provide this facility across Arena and Nexa across the country,” he added.
He said it is also interesting to see that there is no special class or segment of customers availing this facility. In fact, for the first time, the break-up between rural and urban is uniform.
Currently, the carmaker only sees 28% of the total cars financed have moved online, but it expects to see exponential growth in the coming future.
What Is In It For The Dealers?
Maruti Suzuki has digitised 24 out of 26 car buying steps for consumers. However, one may perceive that the dealers have a minimal role to play now. But according to Srivastava, dealers are now generating more revenues on car financing when compared to the prior model. As all the deals getting closed online in hyperlocal areas go to dealers. Moreover, it has reduced much paperwork and helped shorten booking and car delivery time.
What Is In It For The Consumers?
Srivastava said that as a consumer, there are many conveniences to the customers as they can compare interest rates of all the financiers and not just who is present at the dealerships. Thus, customers get a chance of availing the best price transparently.
He pointed out that earlier, what used to happen is that depending on the customer knowledge or understanding, the different banks could camouflage their offering. For example, they would ask for higher processing costs for a lower interest rate. However, with digital financing options, all these issues are ironed out, he added.