Mumbai, Aug 12 (PTI) The Kochi-based Indel Money, which has pioneered long-tenor credit in the gold loan industry, has set its eyes on more than doubling its loan book to over Rs 1,400 crore this fiscal.

Indel, which was the first to introduce up to two-year-tenor loans in the gold loan market which otherwise would give only 3-6 months credit, has already crossed its initial target of touching the Rs 1,000-crore AUM as of August.

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The lender had closed FY22 with a loan book of Rs 640 crore, up from Rs 336 crore in FY20 and Rs 580 crore in FY21.

According to estimates, the organised gold loan market is valued at Rs 4.4 lakh crore now and is projected to grow at a three-year annualised growth of 19.5 per cent to reach Rs 7.55 lakh crore by FY24, he said.

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"We've already crossed our initial target of Rs 1,000 crore loan book by this March. We began the year with Rs 640 crore loan book. Of the total loan book now, Rs 840 crore is on our book and the rest equally split between the co-lending portfolio and direct assignments," Umesh Mohanan, chief executive of Indel Money told PTI on Friday from Kochi.

In March he had told this agency that they were eyeing Rs 1,000 crore loan sales this fiscal.

He attributed the faster-than-expected loan growth to higher demand following the normalisation of the economy, and higher gold price which leads to higher disbursals.Another reason is the rising co-lending and direct assignments, along with the expansion of its footprint in Odisha and Telangana/Andhra and Karnataka.

He said of the targeted Rs 1,400 crore AUM by March, Rs 1,100 crore will be on-book and the rest will be off-book.

On expansion plan, he said they have already opened 16 branches in Odisha and will have 30 by March, and has opened 25 branches across Telangana and Andhra and 10 in Karnataka. The next expansion will be in Gujarat and Maharashtra where it will have 25 branches each by March of which half of them will be functional from next month.

Mohanan said since the promoters have decided to infuse Rs 80 crore capital into the company this fiscal, of which Rs 30 crore has been already been infused, they are not going to private equity funds as planned earlier to raise around Rs 400 crore.

Indel operates over 250 branches across Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra, Telangana, Odisha and Puducherry. It also has plans to enter Goa and Bengal, MP and Rajasthan at a later stage.

On co-lending, Mohanan said it has tied up with IndusInd Bank and will be expanding this more and has just concluded a similar agreement with DCB Bank. It is also in the final stages of discussions with a large private sector bank and a state-owned lender, he added.

Whether co-lending will drive growth, he said it will be both, as own balance sheet growth is also necessary as only 20 per cent of the loan remains on its book in co-lending.

Meanwhile, they've entered the personal loan business targeted only at its existing gold loan customers and will be done only digitally. The average ticket size will be Rs 20,000 for 3-6 months tenor and depending on credit history, a borrower will be charged 12-17 per cent interest, he said.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)