Flipkart partners with SBI and Axis Bank to launch EMI on debit card

Indian major e-tailer Flipkart will soon avail EMI (Equated Monthly Installment) for debit card holders, which is expected to work during its flagship event Big Billion Days (BBD) sale in October.

The online shopping major has tied up with SBI and Axis bank as a pilot project. As of now, EMI option, which is available across all big e-commerce sites, is limited to credit card users. The addition of debit card users for EMI is going to soar up the revenue and number of shoppers on the platform.

Flipkart has created a 'white list' of user, who will be given this option exclusively. It will be applicable for purchase of products across categories like smartphones, large appliances and electronics, among others.

"Based on past purchases and other data points, we have a set of customers who we can offer EMIs to through their debit cards. We saw that this population of buyers was not being able to shop for high-value products as they did not have credit cards. With this plan about to be introduced, they can opt for higher priced items, which shall push our overall sales volumes up," said Sandeep Karwa, head of large appliances for Flipkart, to TOI.

The number of debit cards vastly outnumbered credit cards in India, it was time online retailers introduced this option for this group of consumers, Karwa added. As per the RBI data record, there were over 79 crore debit cardholders in the country as of June 2017, while credit card numbers stood at 3.1 crore.

Earlier, the State Bank of India had partnered with Flipkart to offer consumer durables purchase on EMIs to its account holders through SBI card, with an interest rate of 14 percent.

Also read: After Snapdeal setback, Softbank Fund to invest $2 billion in Flipkart

The company had also partnered with Bajaj Finserv and introduced ‘No Cost EMI’ scheme to make online shopping truly affordable for the masses.

Amid the merger talks and then fallout with Sanpdeal, Flipkart has been doing its business like never before. The Indian e-commerce major has launched a new brand titled Billion. It also acquired ebay India in August.