
Slice merges with North East Small Finance Bank
Why did this happen? Slice already owns an NBFC license. What does this help them achieve? "to better serve their shared mission and reach more consumers who currently lack access to basic banking services"


It helps them achieve a lot. They can take deposits, extend loans, issue cards without needing a partner and maybe start mutual funds and insurance businesses. Huge W for Slice.

This is very helpful, thanks @TedKaczynski Just to understand properly, does the NBFC license does not allow for the above?

In India its quite impossible for startups to get a banking license, this is a huge win. Now they can also revive their most popular card vertical which got shut down after the PPI rules which affected lot of startup

Cost of capital for an NBFC is pretty high compared to the SFB/CB. NBFCs are restricted on many fronts - customer profiles, ticket sizes and product portfolios.
With SFB license and money in bank (they raised 220m$), they can offer more products. Though the history says something else, BharatPe did the same with other bank couple of years ago but the value creation is not visible on ground.
The hypocrisy of these FinTech/NeoBanks is also exposed, where they used to curse traditional banking models 🤪

Kids take funding from Angels
Men take funding from VCs
Legends merge with banks

Cost of capital is like “raw material” for a lending institution. Costlier the raw material, squeeze on the margins.
CoC for Banks - 4 to 6 % CoC for NBFCs - 10 to 12%

Maybe they will apply for a banking licence

Now they dont need a banking license, they will be a bank with this merger

With that they can offer their own credit card without relying on other partners

I think they are creating just another neo banking app now like Fi and jupiter.
I upgraded to the new update and now they gave me a debit card along with upi linked with slice bank account.

That's a prepaid wallet, However after this merger they might start offering bank accounts.

Originally SLICE started as an NBFC with BUY NOW PAY LATER as its core offering. The proposition was simple , you buy now and pay on due date (something which credit cards do). However in order to make the product more exciting they started offering that you can pay 1/3 now , 1/3 on one month later & remaining 1/3 2 months later. This gap was financed by state Bank of Mauritius as their banking partner by offering unsecured credit loan to the card holder. If they were unable to pay even after such period , card holdes could pay loan processing fees and interest [high rates] to convert these amounts into emi. Thus this is how they originally planned to make money.
But RBI realized this increases RISK AT SYSTEMATIC LEVEL plus destroys borrower behaviors hence RBI issued guidelines and make it illegal to offer such products.
Now these companies like Slice , postpe & uni etc had their business models broken and tried to move into things like unsecured loans & UPI companies (like paytm) but failed. So they have realized the only way they can survive is by merging with banks who currently do not have credit card services or have low coverage for their credit cards. So this is basically a move to become credit card service providers on behalf of banks & become their product managers (sort off, because banks will eventually determine fees etc. )
This also decreases systematic risk as the credit default gets trfrd on balance sheets of banks which are continuously monitored by RBI. Blow offs will still happen but will not impact overall environment.

The Indian regulation doesn't allow any entity to be an NBFC after 5 years of the license. They have to do such mergers.

Hopefully RBI will spare them a bit now and throw them a bone

What's latest with Slice after they acquired a bank?
Anyone works at Slice? They recently merged with a bank. What are they building now ?

Slice launched a…UPI app?
Why do this when there are no UPI fees and an abundance of UPI apps already?
No hate. Just curious why they’d build this


Have to raised the next few 100m$ da! In the name of finance for Bharat ;-)

Is slice closing?
I got mail that they are discontinuing sbm debit card Is that final nail on coffin?