Finin - India's 1st Full-Fledged Neobank

Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by Finin.

Suman Gandham was fascinated by the Neobanking wave in Europe. A neobank is a type of digital bank without any branches. Neobanking is completely online, rather than having physical presence at a location.

Founded in February 2019, Finin is India’s first, full-fledged consumer neobank to go live in the country. Since the launch in December 2020, Finin has seen about 4000 account opens and is looking forward to many in the coming days. One can open Finin Savings account in under 2 minutes with minimum KYC. Finin is a hyper-personalized neobanking platform, made with the purpose to bridge gaps using technology and help people develop a better relationship with money by simplifying antiquated banking services.

StartupTalky interviewed Suman Gandham (Founder of Finin) to get an idea on the Startup Story of Finin and to have a closer look on Finin Success Story, Funding, Business Model, Startup Idea, Founders, Growth & more...

Finin - Company Highlights

Lets go through the Journey of Finin:

Finin - About
Finin - Industry and Target Market
Finin - Founders and Team
How Finin Started?
Finin - Product, Features and How it Works
Finin - Name, Tagline and Logo
Finin - Business Model and Revenue Model
Finin - Startup Launch and Customer Retention
Finin - Startup Challenges
Finin - Marketing Campaign
Finin - Growth
Finin - Funding and Investors
Finin - Advisors and Mentors
Finin - Recognition and Achievements
Finin - Future Plans
Finin - FAQs

Finin - About

Founded in 2019, Bengaluru based startup Finin is India’s first, full-fledged consumer neobank to go live in the country.

Finin provides users with a savings account powered by SBM and issues a VISA debit card. Finin helps empower users with Goal driven solutions via converting them into highly savings-driven financial disciplinarians through smart & relevant notifications, hyper-personalized solutions and nudge theorem to guide them into the 50-30-20 rule seamlessly.

Finin - Industry and Target Market

Finin is relevant across industries and market sizes and essentially a relevant product for anybody who has a smartphone and uses PFM (Personal Financial Management) or banking apps.

There is market size of 0.76 Billion, Finin can tap into. Finin started by targeting Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities. Its main focus is white collar job holders with a salary range of 30k to 90k per month, freelancers, students and millennials.

Finin breaks its user base into 3 broad umbrellas -  Spenders, Savers and Borrowers. The aim here is to convert Spenders and Borrowers into Savers and funnel them into the Invest category.

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Finin - Founders and Team

Suman Gandham and Sudheer Maram are the Co-founders of Finin

When Suman Gandham, Founder of Finin, came back from Europe with the idea to start a neobank in India, he was already bouncing ideas off of Sudheer Maram, co-founder of Finin who is also from a Financial background.

They both share an entrepreneurial mindset and are childhood friends. They soon joined hands to start working on Finin in February 2019. Sudheer did a BE in Computer Science from Madras University. He has been heavily involved in the Financial space and worked as a senior analyst with Infosys. He heads Marketing & Operations in Finin while Suman handles the tech, product and business side of the company.

The company has 15 employees currently. The work culture is highly motivated, driven and at most times fun.

"We work and eat together like a family. We celebrate small victories and help each other across departments" - Says Suman Gandham (Founder, Finin)

The early core team was a well picked list of recommendations from friends and family and the singular motive was to identify those candidates who had a passion for the idea and the appetite to work in a competitive environment.

Luckily for Finin, the core team is aligned to the vision and mission of the company and are keen followers of the Fintech and product innovation space. Its core team members are from Fintech backgrounds. Most of them have worked in startups where they have helped products go from 0-1 and everybody has a shared affinity for the problem Finin is determined to solve.

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How Finin Started?

Suman was a Fintech VC in Barcelona and was fascinated by the neobanking wave that gripped the continent. Having observed some of the most successful neobanks and their inner workings, Suman was clear that a concept like this in india was absolutely essential.

He was already in conversation with Sudheer Maram, his childhood friend, a fintech space enthusiast and a finance industry person to brainstorm and lay the foundation of the idea. Sudheer, jumped the bandwagon and soon in Feb 2019, the company was founded.

"A lot of people claim that India is underbanked, however the reality is that it is indeed overbanked. The only loose end is that the solutions offered by most banks are strikingly similar in a manner to say that they lack personalization, apt utilization of data or technological inclusions to make the customer journey seamless and intuitive. The banking infrastructure is indeed a cumbersome and tedious journey. A hyper-personalized neobanking platform like ours is made with the purpose to bridge gaps using technology and help people develop a better relationship with money by simplifying antiquated banking services" Says Suman Gandham, Founder of Finin

Finin is based out of Bangalore, India and was founded in February 2019. It went live on 2nd December 2019 as the first consumer neobank in India. Finin is an online-only consumer neobanking solution partnered with SBM Bank India. By creating an account, one essentially creates a Finin Savings account and is issued a Visa Signature powered debit card.

Finin - Product, Features and How it Works

Finin has created an easy-to-do onboarding sequence that lets a person create a Finin Savings account in under 2 minutes with minimum KYC. Once the SBM powered bank account is created, a VISA Finin debit card is automatically issued and delivered to the user. While the card arrives, the virtual card has a lot of functions which allows for online payments and transactions.

Further to this, a user has the opportunity to link their other bank accounts to the app to get a rounded view of all transactions and balance in one-app view. This in fact is a very sought after feature as per Finin users.

The Finin app also gives one the functionality to create monthly budgets, basis which nudge theorem, AI powered analytics and insights are used to send users the save-spend data, recommendations on the best practices, reminders on trial subscription cancellations, bill payments, tracking refunds and even highly personalized notifications such as whether a user must opt in for merchant embedded features like Zomato Gold or Swiggy Super.

The nudge theorem employs the 50-30-20 rule to guide users effortlessly towards smart financial choices. One can create Goals on the app to practice discipline and allocate a weekly or monthly amount towards this goal. This goal comes with an added feature called Round off transactions feature which when opted for, an extra amount of the users preference is deducted and saved aside for the Goal. This is akin to finding money in your old jeans pocket.

The main idea of Finin is to convert spenders and borrowers into savers and eventually investors so that they move down the road to financial discipline and further still financial independence.

Right from a high utility neobanking app offering improved features such as easy transactions, easy card management which includes blocking or unblocking a card at the click of a button or enabling/ disabling contactless payments, international payments, ATM withdrawals and online transaction through the app easily and limitlessly, Finin also offers a suite of wealth management features such as budgeting and goal management. These features come gratis with nudge theorem powered insights and analytics that will not only give one a fullscape view of finances but also guide one into financial planning, discipline and independence.

Every new concept comes with its fair share of hurdles but nothing that has been difficult to overcome. We have fostered some very meaningful partnerships to align with our vision and offer the best version of the product we intended to create - Says Suman (Founder, Finin)

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Finin - Name, Tagline and Logo

Finin is an acronym for Financial independence and that is how the team arrived at the name. The tagline, a new approach to banking was in fact exactly what the founders were sure to create. The logo is a tiered arrow pointing upwards indicating monetary stability, growth and independence.

Finin - Business Model and Revenue Model

Finin is an app-based platform available in iOS and android devices. The founders intently looking at the user behavior and based on the findings, they we will be hashing out a revenue model at a later stage.

Finin - Startup Launch and Customer Retention

Finin team have been running a waitlist for a less than a year and nearly 10,000 people were already on the waitlist. So Finin's beta and first set of customers came from here.

Finin noticed the largest influx from word of mouth marketing. The Finin team did things right by talking about Finin way before launch and onboarding a waitlist of exclusive early users. This also created noise among Fintech buffs and others in general. Customer retention is purely based on the features already implemented and the future roadmaps.

"We strive to offer impeccable and quick customer service which also aids with Customer retention" Says Finin Founder

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Finin - Startup Challenges

The adoption of a new concept within the Indian population which is so hardwired to use tried and tested banking names, is probably the only challenge in paper. However, the Finin team have been able to navigate through this seamlessly by creating awareness, addressing the problem and solution together and even propagating financial literacy.

There is a general unawareness of finances and money management across India. Growing up, everybody is told to save but not quite told how. FDs and RDs ruled the roost but the general populace is unaware of smart financial decisions, the right financial terms and jargons and cannot, due to lack of awareness, pick the right options for themselves when it comes to selecting the best financial manager suite.

Banking institutions lack personalization due to their one-size-fits-all approach. It is also cumbersome to gain a 360 degree view of  financial management and investments through such institutions. Having identified this problem, Finin aims to work as a go-to app for everyone's money management.

Finin - Marketing Campaign

sincThe team at Finin noticed that quirky and relevant campaigns do extremely well. It ran a series called #NoWayHosay on its social media platforms. It also ran a #CashAgainstHumanity contest which really boosted Finin's traction.

Finin - Growth

Since Finin's launch in December 2019, it has seen about 4000 account opens and many more are coming on a day on day basis. The product adoption has been excellent as per customer feedback.

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Finin - Funding and Investors

Finin raised an undisclosed amount of Pre-Series A from Unicorn India Ventures, Point one capital and Astir Ventures and are in the process of going for Series A round.

Finin's funding details are as follows-

Finin - Advisors and Mentors

Finin's Investors are its mentors - Unicorn India Ventures, Point one capital and Astir Ventures

Finin - Recognition and Achievements

Finin has been featured across podcasts, media houses, publications and much more through the course of 2020. Some notable ones are Yourstory, Mint, Business Today, CNBC TV18, ET, etc

Finin - Future Plans

Finin has a lot of feature roll outs planned in the near future. Mutual funds, investments, lending and credit cards are a few of them.

Finin - FAQs

What is Finin?

Finin is India’s first, full-fledged consumer neobank to go live in the country. Finin provides users with a savings account powered by SBM and issues a VISA debit card.

Who are Finin Founders?

Suman Gandham and Sudheer Maram are the Co-founders of Finin

What is Neobanking?

A neobank is a type of digital bank without any branches. Neobanking is completely online, rather than having physical presence at a location.

How much is Finin Funding?

In July 2020, Finin raised an undisclosed amount of Pre-Series A from Unicorn India Ventures, Point one capital and Astir Ventures

Who are Finin investors?

Unicorn India Ventures, Point one capital and Astir Ventures

What is the USP of Finin?

Finin provides a high utility neobanking app offering improved and personalized features such as easy transactions, card management, wealth management features, budgeting and goal management and more.