Have you ever wondered about the growing number of FinTech companies in India? Here we’ll be discussing some of the most successful fintech startups and their innovative business models. A bunch of Top 10 FinTech Companies in India and a few exclusive details on each of them.
Fintech in India: An Emerging Trend
According to the Global fintech adoption index 2019 India and China are both tied to the highest FinTech adoption rate in the world at 87%. This extremely high rate can largely be attributed to the rise and popularity of digital payments. This increase can be traced back to 2015 with the launch of The Digital India Initiative seeking to digitize the finance sector, especially in the banking and insurance arena.
However, people were still skeptical about using Internet banking and other services. One year later, the demonetization policy gave this digital initiative a rapid boost. In 2016, The government of India banned Rs. 500 and Rs.1000 currency notes overnight. Although, the decision galvanized the entire nation, it proved to be highly beneficial for the fintech sector. Post demonetization people started leaning towards the digital mode of payments.
Over the years apart from digital payments, we have also seen a rise of instant access to loans, buying insurance, personal finance management as well as several investment tools and applications making digital transactions easy and comfortable for the common man.
The boost in the Financial technology sector or Fintech in India has been so high that more than 1/5th of all investments of 2019 were into Fintech startups.
What is Fintech? Meaning
Fintech or Financial Technology is the use of technology in the financial sector to give better and more efficient services to its clients. Simply put, Fintech is the intersection of Finance and technology which in turn, benefits both the sectors. From ATM machines to stock market exchanges, all technological advancements in the finance sector come under the Fintech niche and have been around us for decades now. It is because of this convergence that we able to get cash without having to go to the bank, buy shares without having to carry a load of paperwork with it, and pay with a touch on our mobile screens.
Although it has been around for a long time, the portmanteau Fintech came to be widely known after the 2016 Demonetisation move.
Now that we have answered the ardent question, let’s look at the top 10 most successful Fintech (financial technology) companies in India.
Fintech Companies in India: Best List to Look for
So, here’s a bunch of Indian fintech companies and emerging startups that have marked a strong presence in the financial technology space.
1. Paytm:
Started by Vijay Shekhar Sharma in 2010, Paytm is now dominating the Fintech space in India.They have over 350 million users on their platform. This is mainly because Paytm, besides being a payment transaction app step into new platforms like wealth management through Paytm Money, E-Commerce through Paytm mall, and even online gaming with Paytm first games.
Not only this, you can use Paytm to recharge prepaid mobile phones, pay bills, carry UPI transactions, book travel tickets, and avail exciting cash backs and vouchers. The company’s investors which include SoftBank, Alibaba group, Ant Financial, and T.Rowe price are thrilled with the company’s success and have invested a massive 4.4 Billion Dollars into the company over the years.
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2. PhonePe:
Headquartered in Bangaluru, PhonePe was founded by an ex-Flipkart employee Samir Nigam and Rahul Chari in 2015, Phone pe is one of the leading competitors of Paytm in the market. Thus, you can enjoy different mobile payment solutions including bill payment, mobile recharge, shopping, UPI based money transfer, and more.
In April 2016, PhonePe was acquired by Flipkart. This acquisition gave PhonePe access to huge funds for it to grow rapidly. Flipkart has already invested Rs 4,000 crore into the digital payments platform. And, 4 months after being acquired by Flipkart, PhonePe became the first Indian App to launch UPI based payments in partnership with Yes Bank. Today, more than 5 million merchants are using PhonePe to accept Payments and the app crossed 5 billion transactions in December 2019.
3. Policy Bazaar:
India’s largest online insurance aggregator Policy Bazaar was founded in Gurgaon in 2008 by Yashish Dahiya, Alok Bansal, and Avaneesh Nirjar. The idea behind the company came to Yashish as a result of some personal experiences. He noticed that his father had been paying a very high commission in insurance policies and wanted to fix the problem of insurance mis-selling and unawareness among people regarding the different policies available. So, he and his partners started this platform where people can compare and buy insurance policies without having to deal with multiple agents and commission trap.
And guess what? Today Policy Bazaar sells 400,000 policies every single month and has acquired a total value of $500 Million from its investors, which includes SoftBank, Tencent holdings, InfoEdge, and Tiger Global.
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4. Lendingkart:
Founded by Harshvardhan Lunia and Mukul Sachan in 2014, Lendingkart enables entrepreneurs to gain easy access to working capital by providing unsecured loans To MSEs and MSMEs who face a lot of problems in acquiring capital. For this reason, the platform comes with an additional 5 regional languages apart from English to make it more efficient for the small entrepreneurs.
So far, this fintech startup has dispersed loans to over 73,000 businesses across more than 1300 cities. It comes under the niche of peer-to-peer lending and has raised a total of $200 million from investors like Sistema Asia capital, India quotient, SBI, and BII.
5. MobiKwik:
Launched in 2009 by Bipin Preet Singh and Upasana Taku, MobiKwik is a digital financial services platform that offers Digital Wallets, Wealth Management, Insurance and more. The company has forayed into various segments of the fintech ecosystem and serves a user base of 107 Million. It registered a growth of 90% in its active users in FY 2019 and ranked as the second-largest platform for merchant payments.
Mobikwik has acquired total funding of $162 million from its key investors Sequoia Capital India, Net 1 UEPS Technologies Inc, and GMO payment gateway. Headquartered in New Delhi, MobiKwik was one of the first to disburse a loan amount in a matter of 90 seconds.
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6. Freecharge:
The Gurgaon based fintech company was launched by Kunal Shah and Sandeep Tandon in August 2010. Alike it’s market competitors Paytm and PhonePe Free Charge also offers its users a wide variety of services apart from payments including bills, recharge, savings, investments, insurance, and loan facilities. It is a Business Unit of Accelyst Solutions Pvt. Ltd. and was acquired by Axis Bank in 2017. It has raised a total of $177 Million in 7 funding rounds. Key investors include Innoven Capital, SnapDeal, Sofina, RTP Global, and Sequoia Capital.
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7. Mswipe:
Mswipe assists merchants in making faster transactions by providing Pos (Point of sales) terminal. The company helps link smartphones, laptops, tablets, and computers to bank accounts. Mswipe’s biggest strength against its competitors is the cheaper terminals and the ability to work on slower internet connections, even 2G. Launched in 2011 by Manish Patel, Mswipe now has total funding of $105 Million. It aims to create India’s largest platform for SMEs.
8. BillDesk:
Headquartered in Mumbai, Billdesk is one of the most prominent payment gateway firms in India. It manages and organizes the whole process of bills. It sets payable and receivable reminders, sorts the bills, and offers one-click payment from anywhere on the Billdesk platform. The Mumbai based Company was founded by M.N Srinivasu, Ajay Kaushal, and Karthik Ganapathy with the agenda – “All your payments, one single location”. It has raised total funding of $257 Million.
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9. Ezetap:
Launched in 2011, Ezetap is a digital payments company that provides businesses and financial institutions with intelligent technological transaction solutions. Founded by Abhijit Bosh and Bhaktha Keshavachar, the company makes a lightweight card reader that can be plugged into any device enabling everyone from a merchant to cab driver to accept card payments. The company launched another device called EzeSmart, an open platform that enables eKYC to comply with the KYC compliance set by the RBI.
10. Zerodha:
One of the leading online brokerage platforms, Zerodha deals with equity investments, Intra-day trading, investments, bonds, and more. Founded in 2010 by two brothers, Nithin Kamath and Nikhil Kamath, Zerodha has now acquired 1.5 million users. The fascinating feature of this Company is that it has not raised a single Penny through VC firms and is completely bootstrapped by the brothers.
Like PolicyBazaar, the idea behind Zerodha was also personal experience based as Nithin was an Ex-Trader in the market and faced Challenges. The platform is now used to place millions of orders and transactions every single day.
Fintech or Financial Technology in India: The Scope
India being a developing country is home to millions of MSE and MSMEs, it poses as a great opportunity for the foreign investors to offer innovative technologies to the lesser-developed areas and make profits out of it. The Indian markets are ever-evolving with a high demand for innovations to increase efficiency. Along with global giants like SoftBank and Sequoia Capital, many international investors, VCs, and Private Equity companies are showing interest in the Indian market space.
Nevertheless, fintech companies in India are bound to grow further with the advent of Artificial Intelligence and automation in the Banking, Insurance, Finance & Services (BFSI) sector.
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So, with the fast-paced growth and new entrants in the robust financial technology ecosystem, we can say, Fintech in India has a very bright future. What do you think? Do share your valuable thoughts on the rising fintech companies in India as well as at the global front.