Rupifi, Retailio Deal Gives India Pharma SMBs BNPL Options

The Indian lending FinTech Rupifi has partnered with Retailio to enable credit for its pharma retailers, the company announced on Thursday (Sept. 16).

Founded in 2020, Rupifi provides flexible buy now, pay later (BNPL) loans to SMBs on B2B marketplaces, currently working with partners across sectors like fast-moving consumer goods, food, pharma, fashion, electronics, agriculture and general merchandise.

Easy access to liquidity was a major challenge for small retailers in the essentials category during the pandemic, particularly impacting those in the pharma and healthcare sector. Rupifi aims to ensure that SMB retailers in metros as well as in Tier-1/2/3 cities and towns get access to digital and real-time credit through its BNPL offering.

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Ankit Singh, co-founder of Rupifi, said the one-year-old FinTech has since “built one of the most robust SME BNPL products in the industry,” offering it to thousands of SMBs through its partners.

Partnering with Retailio, India’s largest B2B healthcare marketplace, is a huge boost for the lending firm’s business. Retailio has a presence in 100+ cities with a vast network that includes more than 1,000 healthcare/pharma companies and 3,000+ pharmaceutical distributors.

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“With Retailio, we aim to help SMEs in the pharma domain get easy credit for their short-term purchases with the distributors on the Retailio network,” Singh said. “We are committed to supporting them with our multi-lender platform, which helps us deliver the best rates, maximum coverage and a standardized experience.”

Retailio’s Head of FinTech Rohit Anand added that the company is continuously looking to provide its ecosystem partners with the necessary tools and services to fuel growth, noting that the partnership with Rupifi will deploy “innovative solutions and structures for our partners,” including helping SMB retailers get up to 45 days of instant credit for their purchases.