start-ups – IFSCCodeof.in

Despite regulatory concerns, over 400 start-ups jump onto crypto ecosystem

November 21, 2021 root Banking & Finance

[ad_1]

Read More/Less

Despite regulatory uncertainty and the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) concerns, India now has close to 400 cryptocurrency-based start-ups offering various services to the crypto ecosystem.

According to data sourced by BusinessLine from Tracxn, there are 380 crypto start-ups and 12 Non-fungible Tokens-based (NFT) start-ups currently operating in the country. Per industry players, in 2021 alone, at least 100 cryptocurrency start-ups have been launched.

“There are many start-ups that are focussed on creating new coins, supporting the exchanges and ecosystem, and some businesses are building investor communities around cryptos. These activities have been very strong this year. Roughly 50-60 crypto start-ups came up last year itself,” Sathvik Vishwanath, co-founder and CEO of cryptocurrency exchange Unocoin, told this newspaper.

Crypto transactions had hit a pause early last year when the RBI told banks not to fulfil payments related to cryptocurrencies. However, with the Supreme Court staying the RBI order, the crypto industry has grown significantly. Start-ups in the space saw funding grow 73 per cent in the first six months of calendar 2021 compared to the whole of 2020. Bengaluru-based crypto exchange CoinSwitch Kuber and Mumbai-based CoinDCX hit unicorn valuations recently. The average investment per individual has also gone up to ₹10,000 from ₹6,000-8,000 a year or two ago.

‘Protect, don’t ban’

According to experts, policymakers should consider the growth in the ecosystem while putting in place adequate regulations to protect investors.

Seeing the growth in this space, some entrepreneurs such as fintech Walrus’ founder Bhagaban Behera entered the crypto market. Behera and his co-founders decided to launch a social crypto exchange Defy last week, wherein users could create their profiles and share their portfolios and investment thoughts with friends and followers. “For India, the cryptos NFT segment is quite nascent. We want to build simple software and eventually launch crypto mutual funds, credit cards, fixed deposits, SIP plan,” Behera said.

Growth of NFTs

The NFT segment too is slowly gaining ground and finding new formats.

There are all kinds of NFT start-ups from exchanges, start-ups building APIs, tools, infrastructure for creating NFTs etc. “People are going crazy around entertainment, sports, utility-based NFTs, with possibilities to enter into the Metaverse. There is a lot of FOMO around NFTs in the market and we feel it will remain there for some time,” Toshendra Sharma, Founder and CEO, NFTically, told BusinessLine.

[ad_2]

CLICK HERE TO APPLY

Leave a comment crypto ecosystem, cryptocurrency, RBI, start-ups

Cashfree launches Banking-as-a-service offering ‘Accounts’

September 6, 2021 root Banking & Finance

[ad_1]

Read More/Less

Bengaluru-based Cashfree, a digital payments and banking technology company on Monday launched its Banking-as-a-service offering ‘Accounts’ to help neo-banks and fintech platforms integrate banking services into their product.

Accounts will allow businesses to offer features such as account opening, linking, deposits, check balance and interest earning to their customers, partners and vendors, the company said in an official release. It will help enable 100 per cent paperless bank account creation.

Also read: Cashfree raises funds from SBI

Currently supporting the creation and management of current accounts, Cashfree intends to add support for savings accounts, virtual accounts and other payments instruments soon.

“The product is currently running pilots with fintech start-ups, and will also enable other technology platforms to generate and customize payment instruments using Cashfree APIs,” it said.

Akash Sinha, CEO and Co-Founder, Cashfree said, “India is witnessing a dramatic rise in the number of digital-first start-ups and enterprises. While the ecosystem is evolving rapidly to adapt to the change, start-ups and tech-first businesses often struggle with access to banking services.”

“Cashfree aims to build a bouquet of Fintech APIs to help empower businesses and individuals. Our first product under it, ‘Accounts’, will not only allow businesses to open banking accounts for their customers to collect payments and make payouts easily, but also bring their customers under the fold of digital payments,” said Sinha.

The announcement comes close on the heels to the launch of the Account Aggregator ecosystem last week.

Cashfree works closely with all leading banks to build the core payments and banking infrastructure that powers the company’s products, and is also integrated with major platforms such as Shopify, Wix, Paypal, Amazon Pay, Paytm and Google Pay, it said.

[ad_2]

CLICK HERE TO APPLY

Leave a comment accounts, API, banking, Cashfree, Money, start-ups

Still a long way to become a Super App: PhonePe co-founder

September 4, 2021 root Banking & Finance

[ad_1]

Read More/Less

As the race to become a super app heats up in the India, PhonePe co-founder and CTO Rahul Chari said that the company still has a long way ahead in building such as platform.

Given the multiple offerings and partnerships, PhonePe is often counted as a potential super app for Indian consumers. Super app is defined as an app that has at least two high frequency use-cases or functions.

“I think send (sending money) and spend (merchant transactions) is where we believe that we have made our mark, and we still have a long way to go when it comes to financial services, so we are still a way off,” Chari told BusinessLine.

Build trust

Adding to that, Karthik Raghupathy, Head of Strategy and Investor Relations at PhonePe, noted that the company is feeling good about their journey as consumers are trusting them with send and spend related services.

“We need to build trust to enter financial services. Banks have historically had that trust because people have placed their earnings with them. We are gaining that trust on the back of payments. Now as we move into the financial services space, we are seeing good proof points that we can get there but like Rahul (Chari) said, there’s still a long journey ahead of us,” he said.

Consolidated service

PhonePe has expanded into a majority of verticals encompassing all things money. Users can today send and receive money, recharge mobile, DTH, data cards, pay at stores, make utility payments, buy gold, insurance and make investments. PhonePe also launched its Switch platform in 2018, enabling users to place orders on 600 apps directly from within the PhonePe mobile app. PhonePe claims to be accessible at 20 million merchant outlets across 12,000 towns and 4,000 taluks nationally.

The most frequent use-cases on the app are digital money transfers, bill payments or recharge, and offline transactions at stores. The executives claim that once a new user has done two or more of these three use-cases, they tend to stay with PhonePe and repeat transactions happen in almost 100 per cent cases.

Also see: Proposed e-commerce rules could dampen super app plans of many Indian players

Chari added that PhonePe is focused on building a service where everything about money is easily available to the users on a single platform that they trust and engage with. And the experiences around daily and high frequency use cases are about transactions that are completed in the fastest possible manner.

PhonePe recently got its insurance broking license and an in-principle approval to operate as an account aggregator. Going forward, PhonePe will be focusing more on the financial services space and collaborating more with the BFSI sector across insurance, investments, and lending.

While the company did not comment on the profitability and IPO timelines. Chari noted that the company is quite efficient in growing its user base and has stopped doing cash backs to inspire repeat customer behaviours.

Interactive website

Further, PhonePe has launched an interactive website showing data, insights, and trends on digital payments done through its app — called PhonePe Pulse. PhonePe claims to have a 45 per cent market share in digital payments, and a 300 million user base.

The company sees this as a way to give back to the ecosystem and hopes that government, policy makers, regulatory bodies, media, industry analysts, merchant partners, start-ups, academic institutions and students will benefit with this data.

“It’s not all necessarily just noble and altruistic. If any of these collaborations happen, I’m sure there will be people who would want to strike a partnership with PhonePe. There will be new companies that emerge, they can actually then collaborate much more deeply with us, so we will actually benefit both as a business and a product, along with the larger goal of saying we are enabling multiple businesses,” said Chari.

[ad_2]

CLICK HERE TO APPLY

Leave a comment payment aggregator, payment processor, phonepe, start-ups, super app

RBI deadline to stop storage of card details worries start-ups

August 18, 2021 root Banking & Finance

[ad_1]

Read More/Less

With the deadline to implement an RBI norm that prohibits payment gateways and payment aggregators from storing customer card details closing in, consumer tech start-ups are a worried lot.

Accepting the diktat could reduce the ease of payments for half a billion Internet users in India.

This could even increase barriers of entry for the next billion Internet users who are just getting hold of technology services like food delivery, online retail, and on-demand video streaming.

The RBI had suggested tokenisation as a measure for non-bank payment aggregators to replace actual card details of customers with an alternative code termed as ‘token’. The token has to be unique for a combination of card, token requestor (an entity that accepts tokenisation request from the customer and sends it to the card network to issue a token), and device.

The safety provided by tokenisation is that if a company is hacked, the hacker cannot use that data for another platform.

One device, one card

But in tokenisation, the consumers will only be able to use one card to make transactions on one device. Each platform will generate a unique token corresponding to the user’s card and device.

On the challenges attached to tokenisation, Rameesh Kailasam, CEO of Indiatech, told BusinessLine, “The ecosystem may not be ready for such measures, because companies will be expected to create a token with each payment aggregator/payment gateway which will override the intent of recurring payments. Essentially, customers will not have the feasibility of placing repeat orders, making EMI payments, and standing transactions against their card.”

The RBI rule on stopping card storage was initially given an implementation deadline of July but was later extended to January 2022 following industry demand.

Indiatech.org, an industry association of Indian start-ups including Ola, hike, Makemytrip, and Nykaa among others, has recommended that companies that are able to afford industry certifications like Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) Level 1 be allowed to save customer’s card details with necessary reporting and audit mechanisms built to inform the RBI. Further, it suggested that beyond-device tokenisation should be allowed.

The central bank’s motive to bring these rules was to guard customer data against frequent data breach cases in tech companies. Cybercrime cases in India have grown exponentially since the pandemic. Per data shared by the Union Minister of State for Home Affairs, G Kishan Reddy, in the Lok Sabha in March, between August 30, 2019, and February 28, 2021, as many as 3.17 lakh cybercrime incidents were registered on the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal.

Data security

Commenting on the relation of data security issues with companies’ storing customer card details, independent security researcher, Rajashekhar Rajaharia said, “Storing customer data is not what leads to data breaches. It is weak and, in some cases, outdated encryptions used by the Internet companies that expose them to data leaks and hackers.

“In addition to this, the Indian government also needs to conduct data audits of companies as done in countries like the US and Europe,” he added.

[ad_2]

CLICK HERE TO APPLY

Leave a comment aggregators, card, deadline, details, RBI, start-ups, storage, tech

Indian Bank signs MoU with IIM-B incubation arm, to disburse exclusive loans to start-ups, BFSI News, ET BFSI

August 8, 2021 root Banking & Finance

[ad_1]

Read More/Less

CHENNAI: Indian Bank has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the incubation arm of Indian Institute of Management-Bangalore (IIM-B) for extending exclusive credits to start-ups.

The incubation arm of the IIM-B, NSRCEL, is a platform, which brings together the start-ups, industry mentors and eminent academicians and researchers from the parent institution for continuous interaction.

As per the MoU, the NSRCEL will identify start-ups and MSMEs based on their credentials and past experience and refer them to the bank for financial assistance.

The bank will extend loans of up to Rs 50 crore to these start-ups under its ‘Ind Spring Board’ scheme, which is exclusively tailored for the task.

While announcing the development, Padmaja Chunduru, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Indian Bank, highlighted the start-ups’ unique needs and requirement of suitable counselling and training for tapping equity and debt funding.

The Indian Bank also has a business mentoring programme, MSME Prerana, to empower such entrepreneurs through skill development and capacity building workshops in local languages.

[ad_2]

CLICK HERE TO APPLY

Leave a comment IIM, IIM-B, ind spring board, indian bank, Indian Institute of Management-Bangalore, MSME, NSRCEL, start-ups

Indian Bank signs MOU with IIT Guwahati TIC to fund start-ups, BFSI News, ET BFSI

July 23, 2021 root Banking & Finance

[ad_1]

Read More/Less

Indian Bank signed the MoU with IIT Guwahati Technology Incubation Centre (TIC) for funding eligible Startups under the “IND SpringBoard” scheme of the Bank. The MoU was signed by K S Sudhakara Rao, General Manager (MSME), Indian Bank and Professor R. Ganesh Narayanan – Technology Incubation Centre (TIC), IIT-Guwahati, in presence of G. Krishnamoorthy, Dean, IIT Guwahati, and Sashi Bhusan Dash, Field General Manager, Kolkata-II.

Under this product, Indian Bank supports start-ups by extending credit facilities upto Rs.50 Crore for working capital requirements and also fund based term loan requirements for acquiring fixed assets for their unit. It is one of its kind in the North-Eastern part of India.

Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati- Technology Incubation Centre (IITG-TIC) is a space for new-age entrepreneurs and young minds to transform their innovative ideas into viable business propositions. They encourage young enthusiastic creative pursuits with an inherent zeal to be entrepreneurs to take advantage of this noble initiative.

On this occasion Zonal Manager Guwahati Shri. Chandaneswar Goswami, officials from Indian Bank, IIT Guwahati and Start-up entrepreneurs were also present.

[ad_2]

CLICK HERE TO APPLY

Leave a comment IIT Guwahati, ind springboard, indian bank, k s sudhakara rao, narayanan - technology incubation centre, rs.50 crore, start-ups, TIC, Zonal

Fintech start-up QPS launches services in the UK

May 5, 2021 root Banking & Finance

[ad_1]

Read More/Less

Mumbai-based fintech start-up QPS has announced its expansion in the European continent by launching its services in the United Kingdom. The start-up will invest £10 million and create 100 new jobs, including several high skilled positions in the tech and fintech industry.

QPS is a leading B2B service provider offering a fully managed card issuance and processing platform, which is integrated with the banks as well as payment servers. Incorporated in February 2019 by Vinay Kalantri, the company is headquartered in Mumbai and a back-office stationed in Chennai.

“The United Kingdom is one of the fastest growing fintech markets in the world and is ideal for QPS to showcase its technological prowess. We truly believe that technology could be the defining factor that would enable us to capture 20 per cent of card issuing market within the first two years. We are also looking at clocking up revenues to the tune of £100 million in the next three years by targeting the overall BFS industry of The United Kingdom.

“We are truly grateful to the Government of United Kingdom for giving us this opportunity and look forward to a fruitful business association with them” said QPS founder and CEO, Vinay Kalantri. Listed among 50 Most Promising Entrepreneurs of 2017, Kalantari has been a part of the Fintech fraternity for more than two decades.”

Having already established itself in the card issuing ecosystem of India, QPS has now set its eyes on the fast growing European market. By optimising its secure open API issuer processing platform, QPS would be focussing on the real needs of the end user and would enable companies to customise their unique card programmes.

In a statement, UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson said, “Trade and investment between the UK and India is creating good jobs and sustaining livelihoods in both of our countries. I’m very pleased that QPS has decided to join the legions of Indian companies investing in the UK, boosting our FinTech sector and driving economic growth.”

QPS is focused on breaking the mould of the legacy ecosystem by constantly evolving its backend technology. With the help of world-class APIs along and a dedicated developer portal with a modern core banking platform, QPS provides an instantly accessible private sandbox environment for its clients. Companies could now have a modern card system showing real time data points on credit limits, reward points, transactions, etc. It also gives companies a unique plug-and-play model that would enable them to launch new features with absolute ease.

[ad_2]

CLICK HERE TO APPLY

Leave a comment Boris Johnson, Finctech, QPS, start-ups, UK investment

HDFC Bank gives grants to 21 start-ups, BFSI News, ET BFSI

April 9, 2021 root Banking & Finance

[ad_1]

Read More/Less

HDFC Bank, announced the winners of its fourth edition of SmartUp Grants 2021. SmartUp Grants are part of HDFC Bank’s broader initiative to foster the spirit of creativity and enterprise in the start-up space. It is an extension of HDFC Bank’s SmartUp Solution, which provides entrepreneurs with customised banking and advisory services.

The bank collaborated with nine incubators, including IIT Delhi, AIC-Bimtech, IIM Kashipur, IIT BHU, Banasthali University, C-CAMP, GUSEC, T-Hub, and Villgro, to shortlist and mentor the winners. The bank has given out grants worth Rs 19.4 crore in the last four years.

Twenty-one social-impact startups were chosen from 300 applications received across the country after a comprehensive screening process. These grants are intended to support start-ups that deliver unique ideas that will usher in long-term improvement in society and the world. These grants have been offered under the aegis of #Parivartan, the umbrella program for the bank’s social initiatives. The criteria for evaluating start-ups were the potential impact they could deliver on the following parameters: sustainability of the idea, potential to scale up, how does it benefit the society and environment, uniqueness of the Project

Smita Bhagat, Country Head, Government & Institutional Business, e-commerce and start-ups, HDFC Bank, said,” Through the SmartUp programme, we are nurturing the entrepreneurial spirit of the start-up community. We are aware of start-ups developing innovative ways to bring about long-term societal change. Our respect and enthusiasm for start-ups working to make our world more resilient is reflected in these grants.”

Ashima Bhat, group head – CSR, Infrastructure and Finance, HDFC Bank, said” We are honoured to be a part of an inspiring group of start-ups dedicated to meaningful social change. It is also the focus of #Parivartan, our flagship CSR initiative. There are start-ups that are working to improve livelihood, skilling, and working with the challenged sections of society; bringing inclusive change, which is in line with our goal of giving back to the society we live in.”

[ad_2]

CLICK HERE TO APPLY

Leave a comment CSR, hdfc bank, IIM-Kashipur, IIt, start-ups, Sunita Bhagat