[Aditya]

Maruti Suzuki has announced the launch of Smart Finance - an online financing platform for Maruti Suzuki Arena customers across 30+ cities. With the launch of this platform, 24 out of 26 steps in the customer vehicle purchase journey have now been digitised.



Services offered by Smart Finance include the option to choose from a wide range of finance products based on customer needs, selecting the best-suited loan product, completion of all finance related formalities and disbursal of loan.

The Maruti Suzuki website will act as a facilitator between the customer and the financier providing real-time status updates and in turn provide a hassle free and transparent financing solution. Through Smart Finance, consumers will be able to check the status of the loan online at each stage of the process in real-time. Going forward, different structured schemes such as balloon and step-up offers, among others can also be reviewed on one screen.

For this platform, Maruti Suzuki has currently partnered with twelve financiers: State Bank of India, HDFC Bank, Mahindra Finance, ICICI Bank, IndusInd Bank, Bank of Baroda, Cholamandalam Finance, Kotak Mahindra Prime, Axis Bank, AU Small Finance Bank, Yes Bank and HDB Financial Services. Subsequently, the company plans to expand this list.

The Smart Finance service is now available for Arena customers in 30+ cities including Delhi, NCR, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Pune, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Lucknow, Indore, Kolkata, Cochin, Chandigarh, Guwahati, Goa, Bhubaneswar, Bhopal, Coimbatore, Surat, Vadodara, Ranchi, Raipur, Nagpur, Trivandrum, Vishakhapatnam, Udaipur, Kanpur, Vijayawada and Dehradun.

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[FlashMustang]

To be honest, it's quite a brilliant move by Maruti Suzuki.
By creating a market-place for potential buyers to shop around for the best terms of the loan, they are taking out one of the irritants of a car purchase process for the vast majority of the first-time car buyers (who do not have a Relationship Manager pre-approving a car loan based on past credit history and relationship with the bank).

The timing couldn't have been better, when it's wiser to limit physical visits to multiple banks or meeting the representatives from banks multiple times.

My only hope is that the process does not lower the CIBIL credit score of the applicants. When multiple banks check for the credit score of the applicant, based on my limited knowledge of how the credit scoring system works, the system drops the score (with the assumption that the applicant is desperate for a loan). I might be totally wrong, so, would like other knowledgeable BHPians to correct me if that's not the case.

They have once again taken advantage of their knowledge of the population and have come up with an offering to satisfy an unspoken need of the customers in a timely manner. Kudos to them!

[Mainali]

Originally Posted by FlashMustang

My only hope is that the process does not lower the CIBIL credit score of the applicants. When multiple banks check for the credit score of the applicant, based on my limited knowledge of how the credit scoring system works, the system drops the score (with the assumption that the applicant is desperate for a loan). I might be totally wrong, so, would like other knowledgeable BHPians to correct me if that's not the case.

They have once again taken advantage of their knowledge of the population and have come up with an offering to satisfy an unspoken need of the customers in a timely manner. Kudos to them!

There is something called a hard pull and a soft pull, credit score is not affected if its a soft pull. Most banks and fintech make a soft pull at the beginning to check eligibility. They do the hard pull after everything is in place. I am hoping Maruti Suzuki Ltd. is doing the same