Home Credit India’s recently onboarded Chief Marketing Officer Ashish Tiwari believes all marketing initiatives from the brand are based on the premise of empowering people through responsible lending services.

He shared with us the core of such initiatives. “We have created the brand thought of #ZindagiHit, which is all about celebrating the wins of our customers, being with them through their financial journey. We have done four campaigns in the past 8 months, and consumers are relating to this. Look forward to solidifying this shortly.”

Tiwari further shared that knowing consumer preference is key to brand thought. The brand, therefore, has an annual consumer behaviour survey called ‘How India Borrows’ that allows it to take the temperature of the consumers, but also show how habits in India are changing.”

BNPL: Challenges & Evolution 

While BNPL in India is growing significantly, financial education remains a challenge. Talking about how the brand approaches this challenge in a diverse country like ours, Tiwari says, “Promoting financial inclusion is a core part of what we do at Home Credit. We are seeing Indian consumers taking a more proactive approach to deepening their understanding of how to safely and responsibly use financial products. This can also be simple practices such as family budgeting.”

To tackle these challenges and raise awareness, Home Credit India has created a platform called ‘Paise ki Paathshala’ apart from “Saksham”, which is a financial literacy program specially focused on females.

Tiwari adds that to stand out amidst competition, Home Credit India has introduced some innovative product offerings like Flexi Loan, which is about consumer choice where the consumer gets a limit assigned and can pull money/indulge in experience whenever they like. According to him, “Products like these are next-gen to enable consumers to extract more from their life and make their #ZindagiHit.”

However, according to Tiwari, the most important challenge that the finance sector faces is that of trust as the entire category is based on trust. Brands have to be very careful to nurture it and reinforce it by backing up intentions with responsible actions. Says Tiwari, “The marketing discipline has a critical role to play in this dynamic. The more we can simplify this often jargon-heavy sector to make it more transparent, relatable and accessible, the better. Our communications are centered around our broader mission to lend to Indian consumers responsibly.”

Marketing Roadmap for FY24 

Answering the question of who the core TG is for Home Credit India, Tiwari emphasises that Home Credit is providing responsible and sustainable financial services to individuals who are underserved by traditional banking, to empower them and enable economic growth. He further adds, “Our goal is to get more people into the formal economy and offer access to fully regulated credit options to enable economic growth. It can only be a positive thing for the Indian economy that we help to enable economic growth," the CMO says, adding that the aphorism - a rising tide lifts all boats - applies to their mission.

Further, mapping the key trends in marketing, Tiwari classifies his observations under three main facets - the need for a seamless user experience, the rise in new trends due to digital adoption and personalisation. Sharing how the marketing team and Home Credit India are looking at leveraging these trends, he says, “Providing a superlative, transparent, on-demand and geo/device-agnostic is a must for us. Brands that can simplify this and take the cognitive load off consumers' heads will win in this information-overload era. Personalisation is also a big theme we are working with. Customers are demanding a much more bespoke user experience when it comes to buying goods and services. This is a challenge that we need to address as marketers. How do we meet customer expectations by not taking a one-size-fits-all approach to what we do? It’s an exciting time.”

Commenting on how the evolution of Web 3.0 will change the way the finance sector markets its offerings, Tiwari says, “Web 3.0 represents the next exciting leap in terms of how digitalisation will drive change in our economies. The metaverse represents a whole new realm for marketers to connect, in innovative and diverse ways, with customers. I believe that it will also act as a catalyst for brands like ours to offer more customised and personalised solutions that will deepen their interactions with businesses.”