The Reserve Bank of India has issued a certificate of registration to MobiKwik Financial Services, the wholly owned lending arm of One MobiKwik Systems, clearing the Gurugram company to lend from its own balance sheet. The certificate was issued on 5 November and disclosed to the exchanges on Friday, and the listed parent closed 2.3 per cent higher at Rs 224.75 on the BSE.
The licence turns a distributor of other lenders’ loans into a lender in its own right. MobiKwik Financial Services was incorporated on 13 March 2025 and received in-principle approval in April 2026. It expects to begin operations in three to six months, on an asset-light co-lending model with banks and other non-banking finance companies.
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What The Certificate Changes
The two approvals are not the same thing. April allowed the group to set up an NBFC. The November certificate of registration permits it to commence business, and the months in between were spent capitalising, staffing and preparing the subsidiary for RBI supervision.
The operating model is a 10:90 co-lending arrangement. MobiKwik funds one tenth of each loan and its partner funds the rest. The company has said that if it disburses Rs 6,000 crore next year, it would route about Rs 600 crore through the new subsidiary, which would need roughly Rs 60 crore of capital.
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The Arithmetic Behind Rs 5,000 Crore
The target is Rs 5,000 crore of disbursals over three to four years, across secured and unsecured credit for consumers and small businesses. Against the group’s current pace it is a measured number. MobiKwik disbursed Rs 1,082.6 crore through lending partners in the September quarter, up 34.1 per cent year on year and 46.9 per cent from June, a run rate above Rs 4,000 crore a year before the new subsidiary makes a single loan.
Management told Business Standard this week that it expects Rs 1,500 crore to Rs 2,000 crore a quarter within six to eight quarters, or Rs 6,000 crore to Rs 8,000 crore a year. So Rs 5,000 crore over three to four years equals roughly a fifth to a quarter of annual volumes by the end of the window, starting from an intended 10 per cent share. The headline describes existing business moving onto the company’s own book, not a separate lending operation.
A Payments Company Learning To Lend
The logic sits in the revenue mix. Lending contributes 25 to 30 per cent of revenue and chief executive Bipin Preet Singh wants that closer to half. An owned NBFC gets a platform there without renegotiating terms with 11 lending partners every quarter, as MobiKwik has argued since it first applied: faster product design, its own pricing and part of the spread that now goes to the lender.
The financials give it room. The company reported a record quarterly net profit of Rs 11.8 crore in the September quarter, against a loss of Rs 28.6 crore a year earlier and its fourth straight profitable quarter. Revenue rose 9.4 per cent to Rs 295.7 crore, financial services grew 41.8 per cent to Rs 86.9 crore, and lending expenses fell 16.4 per cent to Rs 29.8 crore. It counted 196.3 million registered users and 5.1 million merchants, a distribution base a lender would otherwise have to buy.
What Can Go Wrong
The risks are concentrated in the shape of the book. Of September quarter disbursals, 79 per cent sat under first-loss default guarantee arrangements, where MobiKwik shares credit risk, and 21 per cent came through distribution. An owned NBFC does not remove that exposure. It keeps a tenth of each loan on its own balance sheet, so a bad credit cycle turns that slice into a capital call when capital is hardest to raise.
Dependence on partners is the second constraint. Co-lending needs willing banks, and a 10 per cent share earns on a fraction of every loan originated. Until the book grows beyond the co-lending format, the NBFC is a better-margin channel rather than a lender in the conventional sense, and its profit will lag its disbursals.
What To Watch
Three questions should settle in two quarters: the first disbursal date through MobiKwik Financial Services, the capital infused beyond the initial Rs 60 crore, and whether the guaranteed share of the book falls. The editorial read is that this is a licence to keep doing what MobiKwik already does, with better economics. The number worth tracking is not the Rs 5,000 crore headline but the pace at which the 10 per cent share rises.
