In line with its mission to help Indians simplify their financial life and feel more confident about their money, India’s favorite investment app, ETMONEY, has partnered with Google to offer Google Pay users a super-simplified way to invest in Mutual Funds and National Pension System [NPS].

The integration of ETMONEY’s feature on Google Play will help its users enjoy a seamless experience without leaving the platform. This collaboration will allow Google Pay users to identify the right Mutual Funds and invest in them within minutes using their Google account and UPI ID.

Google Pay users won’t need to create any user ID or worry about remembering multiple passwords. They will also experience the same ease while investing in the world’s cheapest retirement product, the National Pension System.

To make sure millions of Google Pay users who are staying away from investing due to hassles involved in completing KYC can start their journey to wealth creation, ETMONEY has enabled zero paperwork, instant KYC on the Google Pay App. Users can also go through curated lists of investment themes, see top mutual funds, and do a comparative analysis to make investment decisions quickly and with confidence.

Speaking on the integration of ETMONEY on Google Pay, Founder-CEO Mukesh Kalra said

Innovation has been the cornerstone of our growth. ETMONEY’s integration with Google Pay is yet another innovation that marries the convenience of ETMONEY with the expansive reach of Google Pay. This will be a big push for the country’s financial ecosystem.

We are starting with Direct Mutual Funds and NPS and will soon expand to our other offerings in the near future. The sheer reach and native experience offered by both platforms will be extremely helpful in driving the mission of simplifying the financial journey of millions of Indians.

About ETMONEY

ETMONEY is an app for financial services that is simplifying the financial journey of new-age Indians. Consumers use ETMONEY to invest in zero-commission Direct mutual funds for Free, protect their families with unique Insurance solutions & use ETMONEY Credit Card to take instant loans at low-cost.

Growing at 350% yearly, combined with multiple innovative solutions, it has grown to 7Mn users from more than 1300+ Indian cities and is driving more than $500Mn of non-payment annual transaction volume on its platform.

Emergencies such as medical, rent, advance salary were lead reasons for borrowing on P2P platform says study. LenDenClub, one of the leading peer-to-peer lending platforms in India, released its 2019 report on the key borrowing and lending behavior of consumers [borrowers and lenders]. According to the report, the financial city of Mumbai and the Silicon city Bengaluru topped the chart for the maximum number of lenders & borrowers respectively on P2P platforms.

New age technology Unified Payments Interface [UPI] with 50% users has topped the chart for loan repayment followed by 47% of ECS payment in P2P lending.

Education and needs like family functions, home renovations were the other key reasons to borrow after emergencies. The LenDenClub data outlines the purpose of borrowing and lending among current society being need-oriented rather than extravagance.

LenDenClub, the P2P platform that offers loans up to Rs. 10,000 has analyzed the annual data of more than 4,00,000 users, and has come up with a report – ‘The 2019 Lending and Borrowing Behavior‘. It gives out multiple data points and key insights showing the typical consumption patterns, borrowing and investment habits of people on P2P platform across India.

When it comes to borrowing and spending, Bengaluru is ahead in terms of people having the highest credit demand, Mumbai ranked second, followed by other metros such as Hyderabad, Pune and Chennai. The highest numbers of lenders were from the financial capital of Mumbai, followed by the tech cities Bangalore and Hyderabad.

The findings depict that young, tech-savvy, population with financial aptitude are much ahead of its previous generations, as 40% lenders and 53% of borrowers are under the age bracket of less than 30 yrs. The findings also reveal that the younger generation is more financially responsible and are comfortable borrowing and lending on new-age digital platforms.

The data also revealed that 12% of the borrowers and 16% of the lenders comprised of women customers, which suggests that salaried women’s loan borrowing market is under-penetrated compared to men. Customers from business backgrounds topped the chart along with CXOs to mid-managerial level and salaried individuals as investors on the platform.

63% of the borrowers availed credit for emergencies, while 37% availed for aspirational needs. This is turn suggested that emergencies was one of the main reasons for taking loans followed by aspirations such as family functions and home renovations

On the occasion, Bhavin Patel, Founder & CEO of LenDenClub,  said

There is no hiding of the fact that the usage of UPI in India is growing at a pace and has attracted attention of the entire world. The same can be seen in our data where younger technology-savvy generations are using newer technologies such as UPI for doing transactions.

Considering only 16% of the lenders on our platform are women, we will work towards creating awareness and reducing the gender gap. Also the data clearly reveals that the majority of loans are availed for emergency situations. This is the first of its kind data and will help investors to take informed decisions on borrowers through our platform.

The customer analysis also has certain fascinating insights. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays were the preferred days by borrowers for credit application. While the afternoon meal break i.e. 12.00 noon to 1.00 pm was the most preferred time when majority of the borrowers applied for a loan. The average percentage of repeat borrowers is 37% in which the loan frequency of repeat borrowers is three times.

PhonePe, India’s leading digital payments platform, and Flipkart, India’s homegrown e-commerce marketplace, announced the launch of Flipkart’s Pay Later facility on the PhonePe platform.

Payments through the Flipkart Pay Later solution can be completed in a single click, making it a fast and convenient payment option for PhonePe users. While transacting on PhonePe, users can now choose the Flipkart Pay Later credit option on the app and clear their dues through one single payment by the 10th of the next month, at no extra cost.

Launched by Flipkart in 2017, Flipkart Pay Later is a revolutionary customer focused credit instrument that makes shopping more convenient and affordable for millions of consumers across India. The solution allows consumers to shop for small ticket items up to Rs. 5,000 through a single click payment on the platform, without waiting to generate an OTP.

Pre-approved Flipkart users can register for this option on the Flipkart app/site and then activate the Flipkart Pay Later option inside the ‘My Money’ section on PhonePe. With this launch, PhonePe aims to provide users access to a convenient way to pay on the app and at millions of merchants operating on the PhonePe network.

Commenting on the launch, Deep Agrawal, Head of Payments, PhonePe, said

We are excited to launch Flipkart Pay Later on the PhonePe platform. PhonePe has always endeavored to provide consumers with the power to choose the payment instrument of their choice.

Flipkart Pay Later is a great way for eligible users to transact safely and conveniently on the PhonePe app. PhonePe is the largest payments platform in the country and we are committed to creating wide-ranging payment options on the platform.

Smrithi Ravichandran, Business Head, Fintech & Payments Group, Flipkart, said

At Flipkart, we put customers at the heart of all our innovation and Pay Later is one such initiative. We have been very encouraged to see the wide acceptance of our in-house innovation ‘Flipkart Pay Later’ by our users.

After successful adoption of this payment solution on our website/app, we believe this is the right time to share synergies between the group companies and bring this customer-focused solution on PhonePe which is leading the digital payments market in India.

Flipkart Pay Later is currently enabled on Myntra and PhonePe.

SBM Bank (India) – the first bank to receive banking licence in India through wholly owned subsidiary route, announced a tie up with PayNearby, India’s largest hyperlocal fintech start up. Both firms signed a Memorandum of Understanding to build an “open banking” network towards delivering basic banking solutions as well as advanced financial services, to their customers.

The partnership would enable the Bank to offer complete suite of digital and assisted banking solutions through PayNearby’s exhaustive network of micro-enterprise and retail touchpoints. Besides a win-win for the partners; the alliance will not only empower the underbanked and unbanked segments; but also enable the micro-enterprise and retail touchpoints to earn better returns on their investments. The deployment of the banking module will be done in a phased manner and will work seamlessly with the existing platforms at PayNearby outlets and touchpoints.

Both companies are focused to build open modular architecture-led platforms, that can support plug and play APIs, ensuring highly customized environments which can expand using respective partnership approach.

Commenting on the partnership, Sidharth Rath, MD & CEO, SBM Bank (India), said

At SBM Bank, banking has become an on-demand experience for the new age customers. Branch locations, banking hours or normal waiting time – these concepts are fast eroding. We, being a new bank, have set sights on offering a seamless experience, comprising of taking the bank to where customers prefer to be.

Our partnership with Nearby Technologies is built on a commitment to facilitate financial empowerment among underbanked and unbanked segments – through the wide network comprising of the MSMEs and retail outlets. Together, we will not only make secured, digital and assisted banking accessible to these entities but also add value in their economic growth.

These entities are the backbone of the Indian economy and reaching them directly with the value drivers will trigger a visible positive impact and reduce inefficiency in their economic chain.

PayNearby is the largest agent banking platform from Nearby Technologies – built to educate, engage and push wide range of fintech services, including basic banking facilities like account opening to more advance options like the latest ecommerce experience, the latest payment technology, including UPI, P2P payments and many more.

The technology platform connects consumers via local retailers and micro enterprises, to the solution providers – thereby not only expanding their offerings, but also improving their financial viability and reach. The network of PayNearby retailers, spans across 16,700+ PIN codes in the country.

Commenting on this, Anand Kumar Bajaj, MD & CEO, PayNearby remarked

We will have more than 20 lakh new age retail partners on ground, who will be sourced in a phased manner. They will be the first touch point to onboard customers and serve as the founding stone for the neo-banking initiative. The multi-modular, scalable architecture will allow us to easily plug and play different partner APIs and create an ecosystem where in addition to banking facilities, we are also able to offer value added services based on consumer interest.

From 9 Crore customers to 50 Crore beneficiaries, we believe through our distribution strength and the banking solutions from SBM Bank, we can together realize the dream of bridging the digital gap and making essential services available for all. PayNearby will transition India from assisted service to self-service nation by upgrading and reskilling our partners. We are geared to actualize this goal through our trained, tooled and tested retail partners on ground. The measure of success comes from enabling customers with what they want at a time, place or mode of their choice.

In a research conducted by Nearby Technologies, it has been observed that consumers of all genres have shown their preference for simple to use banking interfaces and are willing to adapt to new technology and services if presented accordingly. Upgrading cash into digital currency will bring about large-scale adoption of commercial digital products in this country.

Adding his views, Neeraj Sinha, Head, Consumer & Retail Banking, SBM Bank (India), said

We believe a new age banking experience is built on empowering and partnering with best-in-class players who can help us solve key challenges, in our pursuit to take a superior banking experience across key markets. We are elated to partner with Nearby Technologies – a new age fintech company and together, we shall take a superior and customized banking experience to the people who need it the most.

PayNearby, powered by SBM Bank (India) will offer all the banking solutions – ranging from account opening, banking transactions, final product sales, AEPS. Also, all payment transactions and relationship management can be executed at the outlets using the digital app or through assisted banking feature.

About Nearby Technologies Pvt. Ltd

Incepted in April 2016, Nearby Technologies is a fintech company offering financial/non-financial services to the underbanked and unbanked segment. Nearby Technologies works on a B2B2C model through its various brands – PayNearby, InsureNearby, BuyNearby and few more. PayNearby empowers retailers at the first mile to offer digital services to local communities, thereby boosting financial inclusion in India. Retailer services are focussed on Aadhaar based banking services, Domestic Remittances, Bill Payments, Card Payments, and insurance services among others.

It was founded by Anand Kumar Bajaj, Subhash Kumar, Yashwant Lodha & Rajesh Jha who bring with them rich experience in banking, payments and financial sector. A DIPP-certified FinTech startup, has partnered with various financial institutions including YES Bank, RBL Bank, ICICI Bank, State Bank of India, Axis Bank, CC Avenue, Bill Desk, NPCI, FASTag, NBFC and FMCG companies. It is the sole technology provider using Aadhaar Enabled Payment Services [AEPS] and IMPS to YES Bank, making them one of the only two fintech companies hosted by the National Payments Corporation of India [NCPI].

Hyderabad FinTech Forum [HFF] created to enable & strengthen the start-up ecosystem to make Billion $/ Rs Unicorns from the city. HFF is a platform for the exchange of ideas related to technology in BFSI space. The Hyderabad Fintech Forum was officially launched by Mr. Jayesh Ranjan, Principal Secretary IT & Industries, Govt. Of Telangana, in the presence of  J.A Chowdary, Founder of Fintech Forums in India & Chairman of India Blockchain Standards Committee, Prof. P. J Narayanan, Director IIIT, Hyderabad, Ms. Karena Belin, Founder, W Hub – Hong Kong,  Sasi Kanth Vallepalli, Entrepreneur and others from BFSI and Fintech industry in the city.

Hyderabad FinTech Forum comprises of early stage/growth stage Fintech start-ups, heads of R&D and Technology departments of global MNC companies in India, Angel Investors, Venture Capitalists, Academicians & Researches, Government Officials and Regulators. More than 600 Fintech members have already joined Hyderabad Fintech Forum. HFF has also created 7 Special Interest Groups [SIG] for domains such as Blockchain Technology, Data Science, AI, ML, Cyber Security, Lending etc.

Hyderabad FinTech Forum website was also launched. The HFF website provides an exclusive platform for mentor-mentee connectivity for start-ups who seek mentorship in different stages of the life cycle from the start-up community.

On the side-lines of this launch a Memorandum of Understanding was also signed between Q-Hub which is a Start-up incubator, Accelerator, Coworking & networking platform in Hyderabad by Priyanka Vallepalli, CEO of Q Hub with Ms. Karena Belin, Founder, W Hub, Hong Kong which is the largest Fintech incubator, Accelerator,  with more than 3600 Start-up companies, mostly from Fintech space with 7 Unicorns and some are in the pipeline. This MOU enables the Cross-Border exchange of Fintech Market Opportunities particularly in India, China & Hong Kong.

J.A Chowdary, Founder of Fintech Forums in India & Chairman of India Block-Chain Standards Committee explained the role of Hyderabad Fintech Forum in promoting and mentoring the start-ups in the city & outlined the process by which we can create Fintech Unicorns in Hyderabad. He added

Hyderabad was the first city in India to create an exclusive Infrastructure for Financial & Fintech activities in 2000. It also has the most important Fintech Eco-System components such as HQ for IRDA, IDRBT, NPCI R&D and all banking academies which itself creates a vibrant Fintech Eco-System in this part of the globe. Hyderabad Fintech Forum will also setup a global Fintech Mentor Grid to enable most Fintech start-ups to take advantage of mentorship and succeed in their journey. We hope that Hyderabad Fintech Forum will form an ideal platform for boosting the start-up Eco-System in the city help in emergency of several Unicorns from the city.

Speaking on the occasion, Jayesh Ranjan, Principal Secretary IT & Industries, Govt. Of Telangana said

The Telangana Government is giving special emphasis on creating the necessary Fintech infrastructure, building appropriate and attracting Fintech investment in a big way.

He highlighted the growth rate at which the Fintech start-up companies are coming to the city and benefiting from the available Eco-System. This will make Hyderabad the most emerging Fintech Hub in the world.

Adding to this, Sasi Kanth Vallepalli, Entrepreneur, CEO of Quality Matrix, Partner of RxAdvance and Co-founder of Q Hub, said

Q-Hub is an Eco-System to build the business into much greater heights. With a platform created for our community members to interact, exchange ideas, form partnerships through regular seminars and events.  Q-Hub is an inspirational centre for companies. The MOU between Q-Hub & W-Hub will also help the community get better access to global developments and help Hyderabad emerge as the leading Start-up Hub.

The launch of Hyderabad Fintech Forum was followed by a panel discussion on The Unicorns from India – A Myth or Reality by experts from the industry throwing light on how the start-up Eco-System can create more unicorns in coming years.

Leading payment solutions provider, Innoviti Payment Solutions, announced a significant upswing in the volume contribution of the fast-growing UPI payment platform to its overall payment transaction processing in offline retail stores after introduction of ML-based Path Predictor technology.  Path Predictor, a patented technology of Innoviti, uses Machine Learning to decipher patterns lying deep within millions of transactions passing through Innoviti to create models that dynamically and in real-time select the best path for a UPI transaction, leading to dramatic change in UPI success rates and a seamless consumer experience.

Since introduction of this technology, over the recent 3 months of Q2 2019, UPI@POS transactions at Innoviti have grown to contribute nearly 2% of Innoviti’s overall transaction processing volume. This technology was also used by Innoviti to enable Google Pay across its stores and the combination of UPI through Google Pay and Path Predictor has led to volumes climbing to nearly 10% for several stores.  The convenience from this seamless experience is visible with a nearly 21% repeat monthly usage of Google Pay by consumers for their daily purchases in such stores.

In offline retail, where card acceptance through POS is a must, the checkout experience using UPI was less than optimal due to high transaction failure rates.  With the addition of Path Predictor, Innoviti has crossed this hurdle and looks forward to a multi-fold surge in Google Pay and other UPI-based payment formats in the coming months.

Commenting on the partnership, Sajith Sivanandan, Business Director, Google Pay and NBU, India said

Our vision is to enable fast, seamless, and secure payments for our users anywhere, at any time, whether they are paying other users, buying products or services online, or shopping at a retail outlet. The offline ecosystem forms an important part of this objective and we’re excited to partner with Innoviti and facilitate this across the country.

Rajeev Agrawal, Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer of Innoviti said

We are very excited by the upsurge we are seeing in customer usage of UPI-based payments at physical stores after the roll-out of the Path Predictor tool. With rapid increase in payment transactions and increase in number of payment types, conventional technology approaches are unable to deliver desired consumer experience. Innoviti has been investing deeply into data sciences and machine learning to push the technological edge for our customers to the next level. We are delighted that our machine learning strategy coupled with superior integration with Google Pay is showing results for our merchants.

Google Pay has been deployed by Innoviti across 12,000 points of acceptance including in large pan-India retail chains like Reliance Retail, Vishal Megamart and others. It is being extended to Innoviti’s entire merchant base in a phased manner.  Across India Innoviti processes 5B$ of payments annually from over 1000+ cities, with a throughput per point of acceptance of 7000$, 2x of India’s average [as per RBI data].  Innoviti provides payment solutions to merchants doing digital billing, by integrating their billing and payment operations into one seamless flow.

CASHe, India’s most preferred digital lending company for young salaried millennials, promoted by serial entrepreneur and private equity investor V. Raman Kumar, has crossed Rs 1,000 crore in loan disbursements since its inception in April 2016. Backed by strong demand the company is eyeing to disburse another Rs. 1000 crore in the current fiscal, thereby earmarking a cumulative loan disbursement of Rs. 2000 crore by FY19~20.

CASHe has till date cumulatively disbursed 380,000 loans to over 200,000+ customers accounting for an average daily disbursal of Rs 3 crore. Top 8 metros account for upto 85% share of the Rs 1,000 crore of unsecured loans disbursed through the platform. The company receives over 3000 loan applications in a day and the average loan ticket ranges between Rs 35,000 to Rs 40,000.

CASHe attributes its impressive growth to incremental demand from existing customers, attractive product portfolio, higher ticket loan offerings and faster credit decisions facilitated by its AI-powered alternate credit rating system – Social Loan Quotient [SLQ]. SLQ uses big data analytics through predictive modelling and machine learning-based techniques on its large customer base to create instantaneous credit decision for its users. Standing sturdy with over 3.5 million registered users and an impressive customer rating average of 4.3/5, CASHe enables quick and easy access to short-term loans with low interests and easy EMIs for young urban working millennials which eliminates the hassles that traditional banking brings with itself.

Speaking on the announcement, the Chairman of CASHe, V. Raman Kumar said

We are excited about crossing the 1000 crore milestone and feel that we have built a significant scale in this space in a very short period of time. Fostered by an overwhelmingly positive customer demand, attractive loan offerings and product extensions and a 100% digitized process making borrowing seamless, faster and convenient for our customers CASHe is confident to sprint across a promising growth path in the coming years.

Innovation is at the core of our operations and we will continue to offer attractively unique and diverse products to our customers whilst setting new benchmarks in customer satisfaction and operational standards. I would like to thank our customers for their trust and continued support in building CASHe the brand it is today.

Ketan Patel, CEO, CASHe, said

We are proud to be able to process more than 380,000 loans for our customers so far and we are considering it as a fantastic response to our products translating into a 60% Y-o-Y growth. Having clocked an annual run rate of over Rs 500 crore in the last fiscal alone and backed by strong customer demand we are poised to achieve yet another Rs 1,000 crore disbursal target by 2019-20 fiscal.

On long-term however we are eyeing 10% share of the short-term unsecured lending market – a target we aim to achieve in the next 5 years. We will continue to offer our customers a superior user experience and instant access to credit wherever they are in India.

Recent analysis done by CASHe has found medical expenses was the top reason why millennials opted for digital loans and it accounted for almost 22% of the loan pie. While shopping for gadgets, electronics, wedding season, etc. also ranked among the top reasons. While 10% of the customers availed loans for travel, Christmas/New Year and Diwali were among the leading occasions when millennials opted for loans. Another interesting data point revealed that of the entire customer pie, females accounted for just 12% vis-a-vis 82% of their male counterparts

CASHe provides a range of short-term loan products ranging from Rs 10,000 to Rs 2,00,000 with a repayment tenure ranging from 15 to 180 days. Powered by its industry-first algorithm driven credit scoring platform, The Social Loan Quotient [SLQ], CASHe quickly determines a user’s credit worthiness by using multiple unique data points to arrive at a distinct credit profile of the customer.

SLQ is transforming the traditional credit rating measurements thereby providing immediate loans to the under-served young professionals who are kept out by traditional credit rating and banking systems. CASHe is completely digital and requires no personal intervention and no physical documentation. The average time taken for a loan to be disbursed is about 8 minutes, subject to proper submission of all documents.