Good news for online shoppers! Now, shop from Flipkart with SBI EMIs

Mumbai: State Bank of India on Friday tied up with online shopping major Flipkart to offer consumer durables purchase on EMIs to its account holders.

Personal loan interest (14 percent) will apply for the purchase.

"This is a global first and a win-win for both of us," Arundhati Bhattacharya, Chairperson of SBI, said while announcing the tie-up here.

The country's largest lender has selected a million of its 300 million-strong customer base using their banking history as pre-qualified customers who can opt for this facility. The scheme can be availed by those having an SBI debit card.

Under the tie-up, a customer can select the EMI (equated monthly instalment) option while shopping on Flipkart and has to choose between three tenures - six months , nine months and one year - to pay for the product. The transaction gets completed instantly after deduction of the first EMI.

The customer will be charged an interest for the purchase, which will be as per the bank's personal loan policy.

The minimum amount for making an EMI-based purchase under the scheme is set at Rs 5,000, said the bank.

SBI, which celebrated its 61st foundation day today, also launched a slew of other products and initiatives, including an entry into the wearables space where it unveiled a smartwatch banking on the Android platform.

Bhattacharya said it will take up to a month to put this service on the iOS platform.

SBI also launched the 'digital village' initiative wherein it aims to transform mofussil (small towns) areas into cashless ecosystem using the best of technology.

This involves work on digital banking literacy, installations of wi-fi towers and empowering students with interventions like providing laptops under the CSR programme. SBI said the initiative has been launched across 21 villages and is targeting to scale it up to 100 by March 2017.