Now, you can opt for wedding EMIs with marry now, pay later options

Travel fintech firm has launched Marry Now Pay Later in partnership with Radisson Hotels. Image: SanKash

Buying phones, renting a flat and a lot of big-ticket purchases have become easy for Indians due to the buy now, pay later offering. Paying for a wedding has also become flexible as now you have a marry now, pay later (MNPL) option.

That’s what Karan Singh did when he was finalising his venue and other arrangements for a June wedding. Stumbling upon the marry now, pay later option offered on a hoarding at a hotel, Singh from Faridabad was quick to enquire about it.

“I did not want to spend all my savings in one go for the wedding. I called up SanKash to know what they were offering and availed a loan of Rs 2 lakh for a six-month period.”

He said that post-COVID, he is more focussed on maintaining liquid cash and that’s why he opted for MNPL.

A first in the wedding space, the MNPL scheme is available at Radisson hotels in partnership with travel fintech platform SanKash that is looking to capture the country’s growing wedding market.

"We have fly now, pay later, then there is sail now, pay later and in the same way we were working with Radisson for stay now, pay later and that's where we came across another use case for this plan. So 20 percent of their (Radisson's) revenue comes from F&B (food and beverage) and the marriage market is the biggest contributor to it. We did a pilot in Delhi NCR at Radisson Gurugram, Udyog Vihar, where we received over 100 queries in 20 days that were worth Rs 8 crore," Akash Dahiya, co-founder and CEO, SanKash, told Moneycontrol.

Also available in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, the MNPL offering is being launched in a phased manner across the country, and Dahiya said that by end of this year the offering will be available in all Radisson hotels.

"We are also launching at properties in Uttar Pradesh like Agra which are live now, along with hotels in Nathdwara, Jaipur, Chandigarh and Pune, among others," he said.

In hotels where the scheme is available, Dahiya said that they are getting over 50 queries per day on average.

The focus now is to take this exclusive offering to other Radisson properties in Rajasthan and Agra which are known for grand destination weddings, said Namit Vijh, general manager, Radisson Gurugram, Udyog Vihar.

How does MNPL work?

As more and more couples and families figure out what the scheme offers, Dahiya said that the maximum funds a customer can avail of is Rs 25 lakh and the time period for repayment can be either six or 12 months.

"If a customer opts for the marry now, pay later offering at a Radisson hotel, SanKash comes in and evaluates the customer. The moment the customer is approved, which happens digitally in four to six hours, we make the payment to Radisson on behalf of the customer. And the customer starts paying EMI (equated monthly instalment) to SanKash's NBFC (non-banking financial company) partners over the period of the tenure they have selected which is six months at no interest or 12 months with 1 percent interest per month," explained the CEO.

For the evaluation, SanKash looks at the intent and capability of the customer to repay. "Customers are assessed through third-party data which includes ID and address proof, bank statements, salary slip and ITR (income tax return). This category (MNPL) falls under unsecured personal loan and the underwriting is like that of personal loan," Dahiya said.

He added that currently in properties where the MNPL offering is live, clients mostly belong to the salaried class or are corporate clients at the Gurugram property, while in places like Nathdwara or Agra, it is mostly self-employed people asking for MNPL.

Wedding planner Shashank Gupta thinks that MNPL will work mostly for weddings which are being paid for by the couple themselves.

“There are two types of couples in the wedding space, one whose weddings are being arranged and paid for by their families. I feel those set of weddings might not be viable or marketable for MNPL. The other set, however, are the young/educated set of individuals who are nowadays trying to ensure that their wedding doesn’t become a financial burden for the families. These are the couples for whom this product might make the maximum sense,” said Gupta, co-founder, TailorMade Experiences, a wedding planning firm.

Expansion plans

SanKash is looking to disburse Rs 100 crore in FY24 under MNPL. "This will be 0.1 percent of the marriage market of India. The wedding market is very large and roughly about $4 trillion. There are about 35 lakh couples who will get married this year. Even if we capture 3,000 couples, it will still give us a market of Rs 500 crore. When we scale up, we will find out," said Dahiya.

While currently limited to Radisson hotels, SanKash is also in talks with other chains to rope them in as partners.

"There is initial conversation with other hotels and wedding planning companies. We are setting up a team as the volume is unprecedented for us. This was an accidental discovery for us. But we are looking at a faster rollout to get on board more partners," said the SanKash co-founder.

He said that due to the impact of COVID, customers are now in a save-and-spend mode. "They want to spend but not from their savings and are looking at such payment options because they don't know whether their revenues could be impacted again. There is some pull from the customer side and then there is push from the hotel side as they are looking to clock in more revenues. Two years back it (pay later offering) was a tough sell for us but now hotels also want to understand if they can start offering such plans," Dahiya said.