- Monday, February 24, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
SOCIAL media giant Facebook is joining hands with Indian online lending company Indifi to help give loans to small domestic businesses, its country head revealed on Friday (20) to encourage more businesses to advertise on its platform.
The Facebook-Indifi partnership will provide loans ranging from Rs 5 lakh to 50 lakh ($6,719-$67,191) at yearly interest rates of up to 20 per cent. Facebook India’s managing director Ajit Mohan said this in a virtual news conference, Reuters reported.
According to Facebook, it would pay off to boost the small-business economy in India as these companies will use its apps, including Instagram and WhatsApp to bolster their growth. It also said India is the first Facebook country where this programme is being rolled out.
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“We’re not looking to make money from this programme, we don’t have any revenue share… but we are hoping this creates growth in the industry that will eventually benefit us,” Mohan said, adding that Facebook made zero monetary contribution towards the programme.
The loans are available to small businesses that have been advertising on the platform or its group apps for at least six months. The programme could help drive more such firms to advertise on the social network and its apps that have a high following in India.
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India is home to more than 410 million Facebook users while it is also the biggest market for WhatsApp with more than 530 million users. Instagram also has more than 200 million users in India and has particularly gained from a ban on TikTok, a Chinese short video platform, since last year.
In 2020, Facebook invested more than $5 billion in Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Jio Platforms digital unit. It will allow WhatsApp to make payment services to millions of mom-and-pop stores in India. Besides, the messenger also has plans to improve its partnership with banks to offer financial services like pensions and insurance.
