The Lending Industry Is Now Focused On Customer Delivery and Delightful Experience- Ajay Chaurasia of RupeeRedee
Year End Stories
StartupTalky presents Recap'22. This is a series of interviews in which we conduct in-depth discussions with founders & industry leaders to understand their growth in 2022 and their predictions for the future.
Digital lending refers to the process of borrowing and lending money using online platforms and digital tools. This can include peer-to-peer lending platforms, online banks, and traditional financial institutions that offer digital loan applications and services.
Digital lending has become increasingly popular in recent years due to the convenience and speed of the process, as well as the potential for lower borrowing costs. The lending market in India grew to Rs 174.3 lakh crore in March 2022, up by 11.1 % on an annual basis, as compared to March 2021. However, it is important to carefully research and compare different digital lending options to ensure that you are getting the best terms and rates available.
For this Interview, we invited Mr. Ajay Chaurasia, VP of Marketing, Product & Business, RupeeRedee, where we talked about the growth, challenges, insights, and future opportunities in the lending industry.
StartupTalky: Ajay, please tell us about RupeeRedee and the vision & motivation behind starting it.
Ajay Chaurasia: RupeeRedee is a Digital Lending company with an NBFC license to offer lending solutions to Indian customers across the country. We are a tech-enabled company in the financial sector solving gaps in the lending industry with customers.
Even if it's 2022, India still has a huge population that is not connected to Digital Banking and Lending Solutions. There is a huge population of Underserved customers, who cannot get a loan from a bank or a big NBFC as they might not have ITR or Proper documentation to take a loan.
Also, the ticket size that we offer is customized which allows our users to take loans for small purposes as well. The vision is to reach out to the masses and offer them our services when they are in need and fulfill their short-term dreams.
StartupTalky: Ajay, according to you what are the USPs of your products?
Ajay Chaurasia: Well since we deal in digital lending, we try to customize loan products for the users and we offer many options like multiple tenors, instant availability and credit check, paperless process, strong KYC process, IMPS transfers post-approval.
StartupTalky: Ajay, if we talk about the lending industry in particular, how has the Lending industry changed in recent years and how has RupeeRedee adapted to these changes?
Ajay Chaurasia: Industry has grown more than 2X in recent years as more and more Indians are coming onboard on such platforms for their needs. Technology has enabled every industry to grow and offer the best experience. India has moved on to a mobile app-driven user base, and because of this, the financial sector has transformed drastically. The entire sector has become fast and is now focused on customer delivery and delightful experience.
Our company has also adopted the same and designed the product accordingly to offer the best to customers and compete with our competition.
StartupTalky: How do you stay up-to-date on the latest trends and developments in your industry?
Ajay Chaurasia: RupeeRedee is a part of the IAMAI Fintech convergence council. We also monitor the market, and RBI Guidelines, and thanks to Media stories, we get to know the changes.
StartupTalky: What key metrics do you track to check the company's growth and performance?
Ajay Chaurasia: In our sector growth is dependent upon multiple factors. User Acquisition, User retention, No of loans Disbursals, Repayments, loan portfolio, Collection efficiency. As a Fintech- NBFC we have to look after all the aspects to track growth and stay in profit.
StartupTalky: You talked about metrics and performances, what were the most significant challenges your company faced in the past year and how did you overcome them?
Ajay Chaurasia: Getting new customers was a challenge in the market as there were so many big giants and players already available. Attracting new customers, building trust and branding was a big challenge for us. We expanded our acquisition channels in the last year. Reached out to the masses via different media. Made a market-fit product to communicate the needs of the customers.
StartupTalky: What are the different strategies you use for marketing? Tell us about any growth hack which you pulled off.
Ajay Chaurasia: We have been using multiple strategies which should be our secret. But broadly we use Affiliate partners, Online campaigns, OEM Channels, Social Media platforms, google, and many publishers-based campaigns to reach out to our audience and deliver the promise.
StartupTalky: What opportunities do you see for future growth in your industry in India and the world? What kind of difference in market behavior have you seen within states in India?
Ajay Chaurasia: Fintech and Lending industry has huge opportunities in the coming time while doing any type of transaction has already become very easy in today’s time which opens up accessibility to consumers in India.
The world is becoming one, we can see companies crossing borders, Cross border payments are becoming easier. Global brands are connected with multiple fintech based on the countries they are providing their services. There is still a huge population in India and the World who are still connected with Mainstream banking.
Every state in India has different consumer behavior, values, culture, and languages. This is why most brands have multilingual apps and websites to connect with consumers. Some states have a high demand for certain products, some states have different income groups. Some have different age groups. We have to analyze each city with Pin Codes while running a business like lending to map the risk of the consumers.
Michelle D’souza
StartupTalky: What lessons did your team learn in the past year and how will these inform your future plans and strategies?
Ajay Chaurasia: We certainly know “what not to do” in the coming year. What we can do is still in the plan, we will try to achieve the same for the growth of the company and the satisfaction of our consumers. There is an area for improvement in everything that we do. We also have plans to improve and be better than last year. Our future plans can be summarized in the below points.
● Increase customer base
● Improve customer satisfaction
● Build new products
● Improve our position in the Industry
StartupTalky: How do you plan to expand the Customers, product, and team base in the future?
Ajay Chaurasia: We have plans to increase, thanks to Digital Media and Networks getting customers today is not a problem. Problem is to convert them by offering the right fit product. We have tied up with some big agencies and networks to boost traffic on our App and Web Platform.
Product and team base always increase with the demand and rise in the business. We have been hiring and doubling the size of the team in the last 1 year. We will see how 2023 unfolds for us.
StartupTalky: One tip that you would like to share with people reading this article who want to get into entrepreneurship?
Ajay Chaurasia: Don’t daydream of only making money, today entrepreneurship has been linked with success and money. But in reality, the path to success is very difficult. Do your research, understand the basic things of the business you want to start, and then take the risk. Improve yourself every day and handle the challenges. If all things go well, you never know, maybe you could be building the next unicorn for India and generating jobs.
We thank Ajay Chaurasia for spending his valuable time and sharing his learnings with all of us.
You can read other Recap'22 Interviews here.
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