Phygital is the strategy for Mahindra Finance

Mahindra & Mahindra Financial Services has been an early adopter of technology. Today, it uses blockchain, AI and ML and at the same time physical branches to serve its predominantly rural customers in a more efficient manner resulting in total customer delight:

Mahindra & Mahindra Financial Services, the rural-focused NBFC arm of the automobile major Mahindra & Mahindra, is today the top financier of tractors in the country. The company has several other financial products to make the lives of the rural and agricultural community a better experience. The company believes that given the nature of the geographies it operates in and the different segments of customers it serves in the deepest pockets of rural India, it needs to have a viable mix of the digital and the physical business models in the foreseeable future. It is just being practical, feels the company.

Mahindra Finance’s vice chairman and MD Ramesh Iyer, says while on the one hand, the company will offer fully digital, online products for specific target customer segments, on the other, it will continue to serve other customer segments through its branch model. “We will therefore have a ‘phygital’ strategy where the physical and digital models will co-exist and complement each other,” says he.

Iyer says the company has been serving the un-banked and new-to credit population in semi-urban and rural India, is present in every Indian state, and its 1300 + branch network covers 85% of districts nationwide. It has served 6.6 million customers spread over 370,000 villages – that’s more than one in 2 villages in the country.

4-PILLAR-STRATEGY

“Our customer-centric financial inclusion model focuses on 4 pillars – easy access to credit for livelihood, insurance, housing and investment solutions. We believe that the latent demand for financial services in the country is huge and we are uniquely placed to cater to the same,” says he.