Easiloan Revolutionizes Home Loans with AI-Powered Digital Marketplace and Transparent Lending

"Home buying in itself is a very emotional, high-value transaction. It's probably the most time-consuming, requires multiple stakeholders alignment. When it comes to home loan, it is seen as a product wherein you do not want to increase your anxiety." This powerful insight from Pramod Kathuria, Founder & CEO of Easiloan, captures the fundamental problem his fintech platform is solving: transforming the nerve-wracking, opaque process of getting a home loan into a transparent, empowering digital experience.

Kathuria, a veteran with 20 years of experience in banking and real estate, launched Easiloan during the COVID-19 lockdown to address the massive gap in mortgage lending innovation. While fintech had revolutionized discovery, consumption, and borrowing, mortgage lending remained stuck in the past—complex, opaque, and anxiety-inducing for millions of Indians.

The conversation reveals how a seasoned professional turned entrepreneur is leveraging AI and digital technology to eliminate loan approval anxiety and bring transparency to India's ₹20 lakh crore home loan market.

From Banking Veteran to Entrepreneur: The Easiloan Origin Story

Kathuria's journey to founding Easiloan defies the typical startup founder stereotype. "I'm not a usual suspect when it comes to typical entrepreneur persona," he admits. "I have about 20 years of experience before I really started Easiloan."

His career began in banking with housing finance at a leading private sector bank, giving him deep, embedded experience in how the home loan ecosystem works. He then spent 15 years in real estate, working with industry leaders on both residential and commercial properties, with his last assignment at L&T City Hyderabad overseeing all functions.

"From a family background perspective, everybody has been from a salary background," Kathuria shares. "My mom was a teacher from state government, my father worked in central government Ministry of Defense, my sibling is from professional background working with banks and financial institutions—including my wife who's coming from a banking background."

The COVID Lockdown Catalyst

The turning point came during COVID-19 when Kathuria returned to Mumbai and faced complete lockdown. Like many professionals, he had been contemplating entrepreneurship for one or two years, working on various business models. But lockdown provided the focus to pursue it seriously.

"I came back to Mumbai and we were all locked out completely. That is the time that I really pursued this business model very, very seriously," Kathuria recalls. "We went about talking to investors, sharpening the business model, and started Easiloan."

A personal experience during COVID crystallized the problem. "I was trying to sell a property during COVID in Hyderabad. The first buyer came in, he could not get the home loan because obviously at that time it was complete lockdown. The second buyer took almost 7-8 months to complete the transaction because it was partial lockdown."

This firsthand experience of how home loan delays could derail property transactions became the catalyst for building Easiloan.

The Problem: Mortgage Lending's Digital Blind Spot

Kathuria identified a glaring gap in India's fintech revolution. "If you really see the kind of innovation that we've seen in the fintech space, in the financial products space, there's been a great revolution with the way discovery is done, consumption is done, barring mortgage."

Why had mortgage lending been left behind? "Because it's a secured lending, there is an underlying asset. It's more complex, there are more governance around it, compliances around it. And which is where it becomes more complex."

This complexity had resulted in a customer experience that was fundamentally broken. Home buyers, already navigating the emotional and stressful process of property purchase, had to deal with opaque loan processes, multiple bank visits, uncertain approval timelines, and zero transparency on whether they were getting competitive rates.

The Missing Middle in Fintech Innovation

Kathuria makes an important distinction about Easiloan's position in the fintech landscape. "Fintech typically is a combination of finance and technology. Anybody who's kind of bringing it together—a new age company—can be called as a fintech."

But not all fintechs play the same role. "There are fintechs when it comes to products like loans who are more on the capital side which is the finance side of it—they have their own book, understand the customer, do the KYC, and give the loan and do the collection completely end-to end."

Easiloan identifies differently. "We identify ourselves more as a tech play when it comes to fintech. We play a front end role to a lender. We enable digital onboarding of a customer, we enable discovery of a customer, and we find a customer for the bank."

The Solution: AI-Powered Matchmaking and Transparent Marketplace

At the heart of Easiloan's innovation is its AI-powered decision tree that connects the right customer with the right lender. "We have a decision tree which is essentially a machine learning tool," Kathuria explains.

The platform operates on two sides: the buy side (customers acquired through B2B and B2C channels, with focus on real estate brokers and developers) and the sell side (35-40 diverse lenders including public sector banks, private sector banks, and housing finance companies).

"We've tied up with all of them and understood their guidelines—how at what level do they want to fund our customer, what kind of profile are they comfortable with," Kathuria details. "Then we build all this together on a decision tree, which is where we are able to recommend offers which are fine-tuned to the profile of a customer."

Eliminating Loan Approval Anxiety Through Empowerment

The core problem Easiloan addresses is what Kathuria calls "loan approval anxiety"—the stress customers feel when they've paid advance to a property seller but don't know if their loan will be approved, or when, or at what rate.

"I would like to actually put the empowerment part of it as a word," Kathuria emphasizes. "At times customers feel powerless. You're going to one bank after the other, you're highly dependent on the channel."

Easiloan's solution is radical transparency. "We are able to completely bring that information in a transparent way, instantly to the customer, and comprehensively. It's not limited to a certain segment—we cater to all segments, diverse set of asset classes, exhaustive set of lenders."

The platform even includes gamification tools. "We've created tools where you can gamify—you can change whether you want a tenure from 20 years to 25 years to 30 years, and corresponding to that change in your requirement, you'll have different offers getting populated."

Data Security and Privacy in the Digital Lending Era

In an era where data privacy concerns are mounting, especially in real estate and fintech where data selling scandals have occurred, Easiloan has built enterprise-grade security from day one.

"Data security is a very, very critical area," Kathuria acknowledges. "We developed our tech in-house, we got ISO certification on the processes, and we got it at the very initial stage of developing our tech. We've always been ISO certified throughout."

The platform follows a layered approach to data protection. Externally, it follows frameworks prescribed by banks, government, and RBI—with consent-based data flow and encryption. Internally, it has implemented SOPs and access controls.

"We make sure that there is a framework, SOPs in place which allow data only to the user to the extent that one has to use it," Kathuria explains. "There are checkpoints, channels which kind of break the circuit for one person to not go beyond a certain use of data."

Minimal Data Collection, Maximum Value

Unlike many fintech apps that extract excessive data (reading SMS, accessing contacts, tracking location), Easiloan takes a minimalist approach focused only on what's necessary to facilitate the loan.

"We are a marketplace for home loans, so we take information mostly on the requirement—what is the customer looking for," Kathuria explains. "This information is filled by the customer themselves, so fundamentally it comes with a very organized channel. It is a layer of consent to begin with."

The platform collects only what's needed for meaningful offers: loan amount requirement, LTV ratio, salary class or self-employment segment, property address. "Those basic details are required for us to make an initial mobilization of offer from the lender."

For disbursement (the final stage), Easiloan coordinates with customer and bank but doesn't store sensitive documents. "Our role is more like a coordinator. All the secured documents are handed over directly to the bank. Our access is largely around the requirement and facilitating the digital documents whether it's POI or POA to share with the bank."

The Customer Journey: From Discovery to Disbursement

Easiloan plays an intensive, embedded role in the first part of the home loan journey—from discovery to disbursement—but deliberately exits before loan servicing begins.

"We play a front end role," Kathuria reiterates. "We enable a digital onboarding of a customer, we enable discovery of a customer which means we find a customer for the bank. Where do we drop off? By design, we play a very, very critical, intensive embedded role in the first part of it—from discovery to disbursement, we are the partner throughout the journey."

After disbursement, Easiloan's role becomes limited. "Thereafter, RBI fundamentally wants the bank to have know your customer directly, which means the KYC is done by the bank and the collection process is done by the lender. So our role becomes very, very limited."

This means Easiloan doesn't get involved if a customer defaults. "The KYC, the bank guidelines, the risk lies with the lender. The capital risk is with the lender, and hence even the default would lie with the lender. We are the front end, we are the facilitator of discovery to fulfillment."

Lender Diversity: Public, Private, and Housing Finance Companies

One of Easiloan's key differentiators is the exhaustive range of lenders on its platform. "We try to bring in a very diverse set of lenders on our platform—public sector, private sector, housing finance companies, all of them," Kathuria emphasizes.

This diversity serves a strategic purpose. Each lender category has different strengths and specializations:

Why Exhaustive Lender Coverage Matters

"That's a great duty we do to the customer," Kathuria says. "We give the entire empowerment to the customer so that customer feels not cheated, not void of any information. The entire information is transparently shared with them—whether it is the processing fee, what is the offer from one to 35, all the banks."

This exhaustive coverage solves a critical problem: if a platform only works with 2-3 lenders, customers will likely look elsewhere for better options. By having 35-40 lenders covering all segments and asset classes, Easiloan becomes a one-stop solution.

"It's not limited to a certain segment. We cater to all segments, diverse set of asset classes, exhaustive set of lenders. And that's what we do—we remove the anxiety, and I would like to actually put the empowerment part of it as a word."

Entrepreneurship Reality: Far From Rosy

Kathuria offers a brutally honest perspective on entrepreneurship that challenges the glamorous image often portrayed in media.

"Entrepreneurship is far from rosy. Rosy is not the word that you kind of associate with entrepreneurship," he states bluntly. "I think it is highly satisfying, it is highly involving, and I would say immersive."

The Reality of Entrepreneurial Life

Kathuria breaks down what entrepreneurship actually looks:

Stages and Struggles: "Entrepreneurship will have stages. You may have to have a lot of perseverance. You should be willing to stay around, stick around."

Financial Uncertainty: "You should be willing to give away your fixed income expectation at times because it may not be giving you a very static income stream."

Time Commitment: "You should be able to work long hours, odd hours."

Multitasking Required: "Today I may be playing four roles. You put under one founder or a CEO kind of title, but fundamentally you're playing at least four roles, heading four functions. Multitasking is something that you'll have to be okay with."

Learning Every Day: "You learn a lot, you learn every day because you meet diverse set of people, you play diverse set of roles."

Downsides: "You may have funding opportunities to learn, you may have a little bit of slowdown. You may have to right-size your organization, cut cost, optimize the team. It cannot be only north that we're only hiring and only growing."

The Agility Imperative: Constant Evolution Required

Kathuria emphasizes that successful entrepreneurs must be agile and constantly willing to change. "You should be okay to pivot from one product to the other. According to me, you should not hold your first product as the final product."

This applies to every aspect of the business: "You should be able to adapt to that. Same is the case with channels. We often go with a thought process that B2B will work or B2C will work. Your ability and your agility to change between these channels, to grow into new geographies, to grow into new products, new arrangement types, models—all that kind of comes as a toolkit."

The entrepreneurial mindset, according to Kathuria, is about "always in that form wherein you're growing, building, growing, building, changing. That is something that entrepreneurship really sums up."

The Bottom Line: Transforming India's Home Loan Landscape

Easiloan represents the new generation of fintech platforms that are solving fundamental problems in India's financial infrastructure through technology and transparency. By bringing 35-40 lenders onto a single AI-powered platform, providing instant, transparent offers, and eliminating loan approval anxiety, the company is making home loans accessible, understandable, and stress-free for millions of Indians.

The platform's growth from lockdown idea to operational marketplace serving diverse segments demonstrates the massive demand for digital transformation in mortgage lending. With strategic backing from Tomorrow Capital and Housing.com, Easiloan is well-positioned to capture a significant share of India's ₹20 lakh crore home loan market.

Perhaps most importantly, Kathuria's journey—from banking and real estate veteran to first-time entrepreneur at 20+ years of experience—offers a blueprint for experienced professionals considering entrepreneurship. It shows that deep domain expertise, combined with technology and a relentless focus on solving real customer problems, can create transformative businesses even in complex, regulated industries.

As India's housing market continues to grow and more first-time buyers enter the market, platforms like Easiloan that can provide transparency, speed, and empowerment will become not just advantageous but essential to the ecosystem's evolution.

Pramod Kathuria is the Founder & CEO of Easiloan, India's AI-powered digital home loan marketplace. He has 20+ years of experience in housing finance and real estate, having worked with ICICI Bank, Lodha, L&T, and GMR. He holds management degrees from Pune and Ahmedabad, and led Easiloan to raise INR 80 million from Tomorrow Capital with strategic investment from Housing.com.