Brands
TVS and Manba put commerce in the fast lane
MUMBAI: When wheels meet wallets, mobility moves faster. TVS Motor Company has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Manba Finance limited to offer structured retail finance across its commercial mobility portfolio, sharpening the focus on affordability for customers across India.
Under the partnership, Manba Finance will provide monthly EMI-based financing for TVS’s full range of commercial three-wheelers covering both passenger and cargo models, across internal combustion engine (ICE) and electric vehicle (EV) variants. The move is designed to make ownership easier while improving turnaround times for loan approvals.
Beyond urban centres, the collaboration places a clear bet on deeper penetration into rural and semi-urban markets, where access to formal finance can be patchy. By simplifying credit and bundling competitive funding schemes, the tie-up aims to support last-mile entrepreneurs and fleet operators looking to scale their businesses.
For buyers, the promise is straightforward, higher purchasing power through attractive down payments, lower monthly outflows and quicker loan processing factors that can often decide whether a vehicle purchase moves from consideration to conversion.
Commenting on the development, TVS Motor Company business head of commercial mobility Rajat Gupta said the partnership strengthens the company’s broader goal of building a comprehensive commercial mobility ecosystem that goes beyond products to enable sustainable customer growth.
From the lender’s side Manba Finance limited, managing director Manish Shah said the collaboration aligns with the company’s focus on supporting cleaner and more sustainable mobility, while also helping it scale meaningfully in the three-wheeler financing segment.
As competition intensifies across both ICE and EV three-wheelers, the alliance underscores a simple truth of India’s mobility market: better finance can be just as powerful as better engineering in keeping business and livelihoods moving.
Brands
Faber-Castell India appoints Sunaina Haldar as director – marketing
With stints at Tata, SleepyCat and ADF Foods under her belt, Haldar is primed to redraw Faber-Castell’s brand story
MUMBAI: Faber-Castell India has poached Sunaina Haldar from ADF Foods, appointing her director – marketing as the German stationery brand looks to muscle up in a category that is rapidly reinventing itself around creativity and self-expression.
Haldar hit the ground running. “My first couple of weeks have been incredibly energising, understanding consumers, visiting markets, engaging with retailers and immersing myself into the world of Faber-Castell Group,” she said.
She arrives with considerable firepower. At ADF Foods, Haldar ran marketing across India and international markets for a portfolio spanning Ashoka, Aeroplane, Camel and ADF Soul. Before that, she was vice-president – marketing at direct-to-consumer mattress brand SleepyCat, where she helmed brand, content and performance marketing. Her résumé also includes a stint leading marketing, new product development and CRM for Tata SmartFoodz at Tata Consumer Products, no small proving ground.
Between corporate roles, Haldar also operated as a fractional CMO for early-stage startups, building marketing strategy and operational structures from scratch, a signal that she knows how to move fast with limited resources.
With 18 years straddling FMCG, D2C and the startup world, Haldar now takes the reins at a brand that has long owned the classroom but is clearly hungry for the living room. In a stationery market where the pencil has become a lifestyle statement, Faber-Castell has picked someone who knows exactly how to sell that story.
