FREED, a debt relief platform, has announced its partnership with Castler, a digital escrow platform. The collaboration aims to build a solution to free debt-burdened consumers and scale monetary stress relief. According to Reserve Bank of India data, outstanding personal loans rose 84 percent to Rs 35.98 lakh crore in September 2022 from Rs 19.55 lakh crore in September 2018. FREED is a platform that helps people resolve their debt issues.

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Started by Ritesh Srivastava in August 2020, FREED’s platform onboards debtors who need to resolve their debt issues. FREED works with banks and other lenders to chart out a repayment plan so that individuals can clear their loans and start off on a clean slate. To date, FREED has helped 75000+ customers with a debt reduction of 56 percent, the firm said.

Rajiv Indimath, CSO, FREED, said, “As a company dedicated to helping consumers regain their financial freedom, we rely heavily on partners who share our values and vision. Castler's approach to escrow services and commitment to making business dealings safer, more accessible, and compliant with RBI guidelines has been invaluable to us.”

Castler, backed by Zerodha and Venture Catalysts, is a digital escrow platform, with over 500 enterprise clients and over $500 million in transactions under management. With over 100,000 enterprise users and growing at a CAGR of 10 percent, escrow banking is poised to become a $200 billion market by 2030.

Vineet Singh, Co-founder and CEO of Castler, said, "Debt stress is a gigantic problem plaguing the majority of Indian households in one way or the other. Be it home loans for projects which are yet to be delivered or rising personal loan defaults. This is a real problem."

Both partners intend to work closely together and solve for $ 16 billion consumer debt relief market in India.

First Published:Mar 24, 2023 6:16 PM IST