GE Money, part of world’s largest conglomerate, GE plans big in the Indian financial market.

It
is aiming to expand its consumer finance business by increasing asset size to $8 billion by 2010
from current $2 billion.

GE has a well-known strategy of being either number one or two in every business it operates in,
otherwise it exits that business. GE perceive Indian market having high growth potential having
a booming retail and mortgage market.

But to become the largest NBFC, GE Money India needs to expand its branch network from
current 160 to 600. It is even reported that it could receive fund infusion of $1 billion from its
parent, which is one-ninth of its asset value.

GE Money is even contemplating exiting its key business of consumer durables finance which
has become unviable due to low margins and high defaults. It would instead focus on high
growth and profitable business of personal loans, cars, mortgages and private label credit cards.

GE Money also runs successful JV with Maruti and SBI for auto finance and credit cards
respectively. To expand its growth, it is in talks with big retailers to offer credit programmes
such as a private label credit card, which it currently offers to customers of Tata owned
companies like Taj Hotels, Tata Motors, Westside and Tanishq.

GE Money is in talks for tieup with Bharti-Wal-Mart, Reliance Retail, Aditya Birla Retail,
Subhiksha, Spencer’s and the Future Group. It could even sell personal loans through these big
retail chains besides its own branches.

But given the scenario that most of the retailers have their own financial services businesses, it
will not be easy to strike a deal. Though a deal with Bharti-Wal-Mart is most likely as GE
Money has a global relationship with Walmart.

GE Money India is scouting for a strategic partner for its wholly-owned personal loans and
mortgage businesses, the newly appointed CEO and President, Mr. Iqbal Singh has said.

“My priority would be to find a strategic partner for personal loan and mortgage businesses so
that it would fit in with our rest of the model. I also want to look for new opportunities for
growth. It may look from outside that we are selling off and getting out. I won’t be coming here
to India if we are looking to completely exit these businesses”, Mr. Singh told Business Line
here today.

New CEO
Mr. Singh, who is to take over as CEO and President of GE Money India from February 1, said
that GE Money India was even prepared to give up controlling interest in the wholly owned
personal loans and mortgage businesses to the identified strategic partner if a strong brand, good
customer base, distribution and products are brought to the partnership.

Prior to the new role as CEO and President of GE Money India, Mr. Singh was Chief Marketing
Officer for GE Money Asia and CEO of the Singapore business. In India, Mr. Singh replaced
Mr. Vishal Pandit who has now decided to pursue opportunities outside GE.

On his new role, Mr. Singh said that he was “pretty excited about India” given its growth trends.
“We think the future is here. We want to invest in India and want to grow. We have a great
platform of businesses in place. We need to see how we can up the scale in terms of momentum
and get to scale much faster than we had originally hoped”, he said.

Way Forward

Stating that partnerships are really the way forward, Mr. Singh said that such tie-ups in various
markets including Korea, Indonesia, Turkey, Latin America and India create the synergies that
work well for GE Money.

“Increasingly, we are looking at partnerships as the way to go. In a way this is not new to us. We
would tie up with large retailer groups and launch finance program or cards under their name.
Those were more in the nature of a programme. We have now taken it to the next level where we
are actually running the partnerships. That’s the way we see us growing. In the same way, we
don’t want to keep GE Financial Services in India as standalone. We are looking for strategic
partner that would help it to scale,” he said.

Growth Drivers

GE Money already has partners in India in State Bank of India (credit card joint venture) and
Wizard (home loans). GE Money India has also signed a Memorandum of Understanding with
LIC of India.

Mr Singh saw mortgages and credit cards as big growth drivers of GE Money India in the
coming years.
Head Office GE Money
1st Floor, 4A,
DLF Corporate Park,
Qutab Enclave, Phase-III,
Mehrauli-Gurgaon Road,
Gu
Gurgaon - 122002
Haryana
India

Website http://www.gemoney.in/html/index.html

No. of branches 5500 Customer Care Numbers 3902 2000

1800 180 1275
Pitampura - +91 11 42470849