Fintech

“Lending companies have been stress tested on their books due to COVID-19. Infact some of the fintechs have found it difficult to survive during this period with high NPAs and difficulty in raising capital. Many investors have shied away from this sector because of the long recovery cycle and business models no longer seen as viable and sustainable. Fintechs will have to prove the efficacy of their business models all over again especially their ability to underwrite and collect effectively before funding resumes in the sector.However 2021 will be the year when winners will emerge among the ones who have a strong business model on collection efficiencies and product innovation. Indian fintechs are gearing up to confront the post-Covid challenges by adopting intelligent platforms and pursuing robust strategies. With attention on new-age financial services models that leverage Artificial IntelligenceMachine Learning and provide a technology-first approach to lending the Fintech sector is likely to gain more traction with VCs in 2021. A key driver of the rising investor confidence in the fintech sector are products like digital payments loan discovery and insurance discovery which are among the tech products having the highest user penetration in India. The growing internet penetration clubbed with the governments push for fintech adoption is set to expand the addressable fintech market further with end to end financial services over mobile devices. For example a growing trend is where payment platforms have added insurance wealth management & investments portfolios to position as Neobanks. Financial industry has always come back stronger after a downturn and shown its resilience through a number of stormy situations. This resilience is seen in FinTechs too during the trying times of Covid 19 pandemic. The resilient fintechs were those who managed marginal leads by reducing costs and increased revenue through speedy and decisive decision making and gained the ability to extend this lead for the next decade. The onset of Covid-19 was a time for fintechs to strengthen risk parameters drive faster adoption of financial technology and spur further innovation.At MyShubhLife we started strengthening our core risk parameters also taking a tough but necessary decision of lending to only certain segments of customers within our chosen market. We built an end to end digital journey on our app to avoid physical contact and leveraged technology to heighten the effectiveness of our collections strategy during the moratorium and restructuring phase via digital communication channels and payment gateways. We rebranded ourselves from Shubh Loans to MyShubhLife. This was not a matter of a simple brand name change. We were already transitioning from a loans-only company to a full stack financial services company and Covid-19 acted as a catalyst to extend our product offering to provide our customers with easy access to affordable and customised products such as Insurance E Gold SIPs and E filing taxes.With the changes witnessed in the previous year on digital payments and contactless transactions on financial platforms 2021 is expected to be promising for fintech in India. A growing trend is Fintech-as-a-Services Platform. The year could see a rise of fintech players that enable the integration of fintech solutions with core banking systems. With fintech-as-a-services-platform solutions financial institutions will find it easier to partner with fintech companies whether it is in India or in similar markets abroad.“