Former ICICI Bank Executive Kapil Makhija Builds MinEMI To Fix What Most Indians Overpay Every Month: Their EMIs

Mumbai, Maharashtra, India: Crores of Indians pay EMIs every month, yet almost no one checks whether they are paying more than their profile deserves. There is no negotiation and no one representing the borrower; whatever rate the lender set on sanction day quietly continues for years. MinEMI, a fintech platform founded by former ICICI Bank digital lending executive Kapil Makhija, exists to be that representative. Its AI reads the borrower's full bureau profile against the credit policies of more than 20 banks and NBFCs and answers the questions no one else does: is this EMI higher than it should be, can it be reduced through a balance transfer, can multiple loans be consolidated into one cheaper EMI, and where will this borrower actually be approved.

The same engine protects new borrowers too. Instead of applying blindly, discovering eligibility through rejection, and watching each rejection push the score down and the next loan offer up, a MinEMI user sees his standing, approval chances and best-priced options before any lender sees his file.

Since launch, the platform has crossed 1 lakh users, analysed the credit profiles of more than 20,000 borrowers in depth, and facilitated loans worth over Rs 5 crore. MinEMI, a brand of Easyway Fintech Private Limited incorporated in 2024, does not lend from its own books and charges a transparent service fee.

The idea stems from Makhija's own experience in 2006, when he was repeatedly turned away for an education loan without explanation and lost an academic year before SBI sanctioned the loan that funded his MBA at NMIMS, Mumbai.

“When I applied for an education loan in 2006, I was turned away by multiple lenders without a clear explanation of why I did not qualify or what I needed to change. I eventually received the loan a year later, but the experience stayed with me. Over the years in digital lending, I saw that borrowers still face the same uncertainty. With MinEMI, every borrower has someone on his side of the table: an answer, a reason, and a next step. Access to credit matters, but so does understanding the decision behind it,” said Kapil Makhija, Founder and COO, MinEMI.

Makhija spent 11 years at ICICI Bank across digital lending, loan sourcing, customer journeys and product architecture for secured and unsecured credit products. The company is bootstrapped with friends-and-family capital, with a team of under ten, and is expanding from personal loan consolidation and balance transfer into all retail loans and business loans, solving the credit problem for retail India.