FAQs
Following is a list of commonly asked questions around the OCEN 4.0 pilot.
Contact Channels
What is the preferred channel for contacting OCEN 4.0 administrators?
Please reach out to the team at contact@ocen.dev
Product Creation and Registry
What type of products are we looking to pilot on OCEN 4.0?
We expect to see new and innovative sets of products that are not available already for MSMEs, enabled by underwriting on new data sources (AA data + new data from platforms). We expect to see products where the tenure and rate of Interest are not baked into the product but rather gets determined by the borrower data used in underwriting.
How will the loan interest rate get decided?
Lender decides the interest rate. But since borrowers can get many offers, OCEN will lead to private innovation on the underwriting side so that new lenders can give more competitive offers.
Is it better to have a very specific product for borrowers or a more generic one?
The OCEN hypothesis is that everyone is lendable. If we want to increase penetration then we should go to a model where the product is custom and matches the needs of the borrower. Eg start with daily to then move to weekly collections for a rickshaw wallah. These would be separate products in the product registry that are served to the borrower as they start establishing credit trust.
Are there specific tenure and ticket size requirements for the products in the OCEN 4.0 pilot?
OCEN 4.0 pilot is specifically intended to validate our hypothesis that short tenure, small ticket size loans are the need of the hour for the underserved and the unserved population. We have seen this to be successful with GeM SAHAY and the goal is to validate the same at scale. Hence, for wave 1 products in the pilot, we expect products to have a short tenure (max 3 months) and small ticket sizes (even as low as Rs.100).
Policy
Will banks not have an advantage over NBFCs?
Parliamentary committee has already recommended concessional capital for NBFCs in a proposal. The recommendation should enable innovation to happen and level the playing field.
Data and underwriting
How can lenders verify the authenticity / accuracy of additional data?
Lenders have access to the bank account statements via the Account Aggregator framework. Moreover, the LA in many cases may provide additional data that can assist in underwriting. Since the LA is invested and motivated to keep the network quality high, we do expect the data shared by LAs to be accurate. This is similar to how anchors provide transactional data in typical embedded lending scenarios.
How will LAs get banking data without AA access to send to the lender?
Loan Agents only facilitate the flow of data. LAs will redirect to AA and Lender will receive data directly from the bank.
Beyond Bureau score - what other delay/default history will be available for lenders?
The current expectation is to rely on Bureau score. There are mechanisms for soft pull which will ensure that the borrower will not be hit on their credit score. There is also a proposal for a new public credit registry (NFIR) which will take time to happen.
Loan Agent role
Will LAs monetize via borrowers or lenders?
Fees for the LA will come directly from the borrower. LAs are agents of borrower in the system wherein they not only help source loan offers but can/may also guide the borrower around how to choose the best offer. Collecting fees from the lender will be a conflict of interest. We are expecting that RBI will introduce different guidelines than Digital Lending for OCEN’s Cash flow based lending.
Can LA also play other roles?
LA can also play the other roles such as Disbursement Partner, Collections Partner etc. We are not restricting that. The only decoupling is between LA and Lender roles.
Is it the LA’s responsibility to work with and convince the lender to create the product?
Our belief is that the borrower has prior relationships with one or more Loan Agents (or with entities that can become LAs). Whichever LA can bring more lenders to the table (and hence more offers) will incentivise the borrower to come to them. LAs have a strong vested interest to convince and to have many good lenders to the network. LAs can also plug in local partners for derived data providers, collections and disbursements partners to help reduce the risk / incentivise the lender and borrowers to join their network. We also believe that the borrower agent LA will create the product network with local partners while the lenders remain distant. The network being strong relies on the LA and their local partnerships.
Loan Application and Processing
Will there be a cap for the expected loan amount?
No. The Lender's offer will specify the loan amount. For example, The loan application may be for 50k but the offers might be for 40k and 45k with different terms from different lenders. LAs will have to guide the borrower on the merits of the offer.
What mechanisms are there for stopping a bad borrower from taking multiple loans etc?
This would be the role of PCR (Public Credit Registry). We have a de-dupe registry in OCEN which is a limited implementation of PCR and will ensure that borrowers are not able to take dual loans on the same document.
What if the borrower can pick multiple offers?
System will ensure only one offer mapped against a loan-application gets picked . It is possible in the short term that the borrower applies with multiple LAs and tries to accept offers from different LAs. The de-dupe registry will help with that scenario and we will continue to add more guardrails here.
Will Lender be able to change the interest rate or other parameters of the product post loan approval?
The process is expected to be e2e digital and the LA and Borrower are smart to understand these issues if they happen. From the technical side, OfferID is carried on till the disbursement stage in the APIs so it is unlikely that attributes such as the rate of interest can get changed in the middle of the process.