MANILA —The Philippine unit of consumer finance provider Home Credit is looking to expand its portfolio to include motorcycle financing, seen to be a lucrative business in this market.
During a roundtable discussion with reporters last week, Home Credit Philippines (HCPH) chief marketing officer Shiela Paul said this could become the highest value item that they would finance.
“We will test the market it first,” Paul said, optimistic that this would start sometime within the year.
The planned venture into financing bigger-ticket consumer products comes on the heels of a milestone year posted by HCPH in 2023, when it hit 10.4 million customers and a transaction value of P295.7 billion.
READ: Consumer loan provider Home Credit to serve 10M clients this year
Motorcycle sales in the Philippines number in the millions annually, with 1. 6 million units sold in 2022, a 9-percent increase compared with the previous year, according to industry statistics.
Increasing partner stores
To date, HCPH has about 15,000 partner stores across 75 provinces, with more than 300 lifestyle commodities in its product loan offerings. Financed items include gadgets, such as smartphones, as well as appliances, furniture, bicycles, motorcycle accessories and sports equipment.
The company also signed more than 22 million contracts, which comprised 17 million point-of-sale (POS) loans, more than 2 million cash loans and more than two million revolving loans.
READ: BPI now biggest Home Credit funder
In the POS loan segment, HCPH earlier said that mobile phones had led the growth, with almost 12 million units getting financed.
The company also noted a healthy demand among Filipinos to upgrade their living spaces and gadgets. It has financed more than 1 million television units and 867,000 computer units in the last 10 years.
Earlier in February, the company tapped an additional P7-billion loan facility from Bank of the Philippine Islands, making the Ayala-led bank its biggest creditor with total credit line summing up to P13.5 billion.