Vipin Kalra
KUCHING: As an online marketplace giving consumers access to customised rate quotes on loans, credit cards and personal finance products, BankBazaar Malaysia sees strong uptake for its services since it began operating in January this year.
BankBazaar International chief executive officer Vipin Kalra unveiled to The Borneo Post that it had since received nearly 500,000 visitors to its website and the numbers are growing.
“I think Malaysians are hungry for platforms that simplify the way they search, compare and apply for financial products, and the reception from the Malaysian consumers will only get better,” he added.
“In India alone, we have had over 300 million visitors, and facilitated over 1.5 million transactions last year. It speaks volumes to people’s love for the ease and simplicity that we offer. With a strong technology platform, we’re confident that we can replicate this success in Malaysia.
This falls back on his belief that BankBazaar International matches users wbased on the their requirements and profile to the right financial product.
“We’ve built a state-of-the-art technological platform to enable an end-to-end paperless journey, where a user could look for a particular financial product, get a personalised offer, apply and get an approval, all in one go.
“While other websites in the market offer comparisons, BBazaar Malaysia uniquely stands out in that it also allows users to directly apply on the website without having to go through to a third-party channel.
“This would mean that there would be no more downloading and tediously filling pages after pages of personal and banking details.”
While other competitors are either a referral or a comparison website, Vipin said BankBazaar is a financial marketplace where you not only compare multiple financial products but can purchase them on the same platform.
“Furthermore, the application process complements the bank’s application process, guaranteeing a smooth, hassle-free journey,” he added. “A customer service team is also on standby, assisting customers in their application journey.
“Through our free, user-friendly website, consumers can easily search for offers and customise their financial needs. What this ultimately achieves is handing back control to Malaysians.”
Vipin revealed that BankBazaar Malaysia has partnered with two major financial institutions to offer their products through its platform, and is constantly working to onboard more financial institutions, and have a number of partners – both local and international – in the pipeline.
“As a neutral marketplace, our aim is to give customers access to as many brands and products as possible, so that they can get the best offers as per their needs and profile.
“Over the years, we have built a very successful business in India and we are using our experience in India to expand across other markets.”
“We started our international expansion with Singapore last year. We took the learnings, technology platform and marketing skills from our Indian business, and applied those in Singapore.
“Despite the two markets being different, we are already seeing great momentum in Singapore. We now have the experience and expertise from two diverse markets, and we’re on the right track to building a very successful business in Malaysia.”
Speaking on future plans, Vipin hoped to build upon the success of Singapore and Malaysia.
“Ideally, we would like to see ourselves expand to 5-10 more markets over the next few years,” he said, noting that they were looking at markets like Australia, Hong Kong, UAE.
“At the same time, Southeast Asian markets like Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, are also very promising. However, we want to have a measured approach to expansion. We have to get our fundamentals right in the existing markets first, before we venture to new markets.”