Volkswagen Finance India acquires majority stake in KUWY Tech digital retail platform

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Volkswagen Finance (VWFPL) India has increased its shareholding in KUWY Technology Service, a leading instant lending digital platform, by picking up a majority equity stake in the latter.

This move follows the first 25 percent equity stake investment, from September 2019. Through this acquisition which came into effect on January 5, 2021, Volkswagen Finance aims to grow its new and used car business through KUWY’s all-India network on car financing. The company says the decision is in line with the Volkswagen Group’s – India 2.0 strategy of VWFPL in its quest to offer added value to its consumers through digital channels.

Speaking on the development, Aashish Deshpande, MD and CEO, Volkswagen Finance said, “Our investment in KUWY is strategic in nature as we intend to make KUWY an important part of our India strategy. With this acquisition, we aim to enhance the synergies with KUWY Technology and make KUWY the face of VWFPL in India for retail financing business. This is a step towards the evolution of the consumer journey in the digital space by offering a simplified and agile solution to our customers.”

“Through this association VWFPL will grow its new and used car business through KUWY’s all-India network and technology platforms. Supporting the multi-brand approach of KUWY, we are still open to further investors – also under the new additional conditions.”

The synergies is expected to further improve efficiency in processes and reduce the loan processing time making it a win-win for both dealers and customers. VWFPL will however, continue to provide dealer funding and insurance products and services to the Volkswagen India Group dealer network.

B. Ganesh Kumar, CEO, KUWY Technology Service said: “KUWY is the No.1 automotive retail fintech platform for new and used cars in India and have been advancing and refining our proprietary, purpose-built platform to provide significant benefits to our growing ecosystem of dealers, DSAs, portals, consumers, OEM’s and bank partners. Our platform enables each of these constituents to benefit from enhanced access to each other and to our technology, resulting in a virtuous cycle of increasing engagement and value creation. We believe our ecosystem grows stronger with scale.”