Muthoot Fincorp is foraying into jewellery retailing. Christened Swarnavarsham Jewellery, the company will soon start retailing jewels from two to eight grams from across its branches. “This is a logical extension of our business and we are looking to make gold affordable to our gold loan customers,” Thomas George Muthoot, director, Muthoot Fincorp said.

Accordingly, the business model would be similar to gold against lending wherein customers would pay for gold on an EMI (equated monthly installment) basis in one or two year plans and the jewels would be handed after the final payments. While Muthoot refused to divulge details on how the EMI would be computed considering frequent volatility in prices of the yellow metal, the company is looking leverage its branch presence (3,300 branches) to offer more products to its customers. “We get close to 40,000-50,000 walk-ins daily, with 75% of them being repeat customers from the B, C and D segments,” Muthoot said.

To this end, Muthoot recently forayed into home loan financing through Muthoot Housing Finance. The company is targeting micro businessmen through this venture who are cash rich and are able to contribute higher sums towards initial down payment of the property. Average ticket size if Rs 5.5 lakh, with down payment ranging from 30-35%. Sometime back, Muthoot also expanded its services to two wheeler and three wheeler financing.