PayU has acquired a controlling stake in digital lending platform PaySense - Business Insider

This story was delivered to Insider Intelligence Fintech Pro subscribers earlier this morning.To get this story plus others to your inbox each day, hours before they're published on Business Insider, click here.Payments company PayU has acquired a controlling stake in digital lending platform PaySense at a $185 million valuation, per TechCrunch.

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With this move, PayU wants to expand its existing Indian consumer lending business, dubbed LazyPay. Additionally, PayU will invest $200 million in the new venture over the next two years, with $65 million being invested immediately. PaySense boasts over 5.5 million customers and had raised $25.6 million prior to this announcement, with PayU already participating in the fintech's Series B funding round in 2018.The acquisition can help PayU further diversify its offering, and the new venture will likely be in high demand in India.By merging LazyPay and PaySense, PayU can offer its users a wider set of services. PaySense allows consumers to take out long-term credit for financing purchases including new vehicles, with personal loan options of up to INR 500,000 ($7,046). LazyPay, on the other hand, focuses more on short-term credit to facilitate order on food delivery platforms and e-commerce websites, with credit options of up to INR 100,000 ($1,409).The companies are building a shared technology infrastructure for the two services, though they'll initially continue to run independently. PayU's target for the new service is to disburse “a couple of billion dollars” in credit to consumers over the next five years, per TechCrunch citing Siddhartha Jajodia, global head of credit at PayU. Additionally, PayU is exploring building new services with the new venture, including credit for small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs).Many consumers in India don't have access to appropriate means of financing, and interest in the new venture will likely be high. While the number of credit cards in circulation in India has increased from 38.6 million in 2018 to 48.9 million in May 2019, this still leaves a majority of adults in the country's population of over 1.3 billion without access to conventional credit options. PayU's platform lets third parties, including banks and alt lenders, co-lend to consumers, while giving the latter access to a digital and streamlined lending option.A number of other payments fintechs are also diversifying their product suite, and lending might be a particularly attractive product to move into. Most notably, payments company Stripe announced the launch of Stripe Capital, a service that allows merchants to apply for loans, in 2019.And payments firms Square and PayPal have been in the lending space for some time, tackling point-of-sale lending and business lending, respectively. Lending is likely an appealing product for payments companies as they already hold vast amounts of consumer and business data that can help them make accurate lending decisions. Additionally, lending products offer a new revenue stream and can draw in more customers to a platform, as well as boost the engagement of existing users by giving companies an opportunity to cross-sell their services.Want to read more stories like this one？ Here's how to get access: Sign up for Fintech Pro, Insider Intelligence's expert product suite tailored for today's (and tomorrow's) decision-makers in the financial services industry, delivered to your inbox 6x a week.