Mapping Friction in the Residential Solar Loan Journey: An Exploratory Study of a Partner-Led NBFC Lending Model in India

Purpose. This paper examines how friction accumulates across the residential rooftop solar loan journey in India, using a non-banking financial company (NBFC) with a partner-led (B2B2C) origination model as its setting. It addresses the gap between policy optimism around the Pradhan Mantri Surya Ghar: Muft Bijli Yojana (PMSGY) and the thin management literature on how individual lenders experience and manage borrower drop-off. Design/methodology. An interpretivist, exploratory single-case design, with the researcher embedded as participant-observer in the Relationship Management function of Solfin Sustainable Finance Private Limited for eight weeks. Data came from partner-portal operation, KYC and documentation support, and conversations with EPC (Engineering, Procurement and Construction) partners and borrowers across urban and rural micro-clusters. Field notes were manually coded against a six-stage journey frame and triangulated with policy, industry and peer-reviewed literature. Findings. Friction is neither evenly distributed nor concentrated in the lender's credit engine. It peaks (1) between customer awareness and EPC/dealer pitch quality, where a financing-awareness deficit rather than genuine unaffordability suppresses funnel entry; (2) at digital KYC and documentation, where the verification architecture that speeds urban approvals becomes a barrier for rural and lower-digital-literacy borrowers; and (3) at the loan–installation interface, where EPC-side delay is experienced as lender delay. Five propositions received convergent support from field and secondary evidence. Limitations. A single-case, eight-week qualitative study is analytically, not statistically, generalisable; transaction-level conversion data was unavailable, so severity and frequency judgements are directional. Practical implications. Six interventions, including financing-led awareness messaging, a low-bandwidth vernacular KYC pathway and an EPC documentation scorecard, are sequenced by the priority of the friction each addresses. Originality/value. The study offers a firm-level, process-oriented account of how macro-level barriers manifest inside a lender, in a partner-mediated rather than direct-to-consumer setting. Keywords: customer journey mapping; residential rooftop solar financing; NBFC; B2B2C distribution; digital KYC; financial inclusion; qualitative case study; PM Surya Ghar Muft Bijli Yojana