MakeMyTrip partners with financial institutions to launch ‘Book Now Pay Later’

By Leandra Monteiro

Online Indian travel company MakeMyTrip announced it has teamed up with multiple banks, NBFCs and FinTech companies, including HDFC Bank, IDFC Bank, Capital float and Zest Money, for its ‘book now pay later’ option while booking flight or hotels.

TripMoney, the company’s FinTech arm has established a marketplace attracting several banks, NBFCs and FinTech players, which also include Kissht, Lazypay and Simpl, among others, to offer easy travel credit to travellers, MakeMyTrip said in a media statement.

IT went on to add that the book now pay later (BNPL) payment has been introduced on bookings for travel, flight or hotels, on MakeMyTrip as well as on the Goibibo app.

According to media reports, MakeMyTrip Co-Founder and Group CEO Rajesh Magow said, “The BNPL and EMI options will help provide easy and quick access to short-term credit for our customers on attractive terms. This will help travellers meet their aspirations to travel more frequently and to newer destinations”.

Furthermore, the company said the initial response to ‘Book Now Pay Later’ on the MakeMyTrip platform has been very encouraging and it has witnessed 60% growth in BNPL transactions quarter-on-quarter over the past one year. Currently, more than 75% customers who opt for BNPL select no-cost EMIs (to be paid within 3 months) while the rest go for longer duration EMIs.

Travellers who opt to travel without making any payment at the time of booking are provided short-term credit by the partner NBFCs and banks through an underwriting platform that evaluates customers’ creditworthiness using data science models, the company said as per media reports.