Bharti Airtel to invest ₹20,000 cr for scaling up newly formed NBFC arm

New Delhi: Bharti Airtel will infuse ₹20,000 crore over the next few years into Airtel Money, its newly incorporated non-banking finance company (NBFC), to power its next growth engine amidst further diversification, the company said Monday.

The telecom operator will contribute 70% of the funds with its promoter group Bharti Enterprises, pooling in the balance amount in the NBFC subsidiary. With the capitalisation, the financial entity will leverage Airtel's digital assets, a team of over 500 data scientists and operational expertise to expand access to financial services in India, Airtel said.

Airtel Money received its certificate of registration from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on February 13, authorising it to operate as a type II non-deposit accepting NBFC. It will operate as the company's digital lending and credit distribution platform. The company also operates a digital prepaid wallet under the Airtel Payments Bank subsidiary, which is not allowed to disburse loans. The Airtel Money entity can legally offer loans, microcredit products and structured financial solutions, but cannot accept public deposits.


Over the last two years, Airtel has built a high-performance credit engine and lending service platform (LSP), which has already achieved over ₹9,000 crore in disbursements.

The newly formed NBFC will leverage its LSP but maintain clear operational segregation between the two entities.

"The success of our LSP platform over the past two years is proof of our ability to combine technology, data, and customer trust to deliver impact at a national scale. We have built one of India's most trusted and scalable digital credit engines-reaching millions with high-quality credit supported by industry-best performance metrics," said Gopal Vittal, executive vice chairman, Bharti Airtel.

With formal credit to GDP ratio at 53%, Airtel said there is scope to increase lending activity in the country.

"The expansion is also a natural adjacency that will leverage the large Airtel customer base to build the next growth engine for the company and further diversify its portfolio," Airtel said.