Enabling Global Citizens Seamless Access to Financial Products On track to becoming a full-stack financial services provider
By Deepa Vaidya
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After the sale of TaxiForSure to Ola in 2015,Raghunandan G, founder and CEO, Zolve, turned investor, backing 50-plus start-ups, comprising unicorns and soonicorns. During this time, he learnt about various business models, sectors, met people from across the world and noticed theirpaymentmodesin other countries thatled him to build Zolve.
With Zolve, Raghunandan is, "On a mission to remove all the barriers between immigrants and financial troubles in a new country. Zolve helps working professionals or students moving from different countries in the world to the US get a high-limit credit card whilethey are still in their home country."
On their differentiation factor he says, "There is a massive gap in the segment for unified economic systems across borders. Financial institutions across borders do not interact well with individuals such as out-migrants looking to settle into international geographies. Local banks and financial institutions in the countries rely only on the local credit scores calculated based on an individual's transaction within their home country."
"We are a cross-border fintech.We enable access to global financial products by simplifying your financial world. We understand that a global citizen's financial needs are different from those of locals.We have now opened up our services to immigrants from other countries, including - UK, Canada, Germany, Brazil, and Australia."
Explaining their tech code, says Natraj Choudhury, Head of Engineering, Zolve, "At Zolve, we are building a global consumer product for our customers. The engineering team at Zolve sits at the intersection of customer experience and cutting-edge technology to enable seamless cross-border banking. Our tech is built around very high performance microservices-based platforms which run across infrastructure distributed across continents. Our engineering team is an eclectic mix of seasoned professionals who have built global scale systems across domains like banking, Crypto, edtech, ecommerce, mobility and more."
Sharing his experience of working in a government-regulated sector and as a cross-border fintech, Raghunandan says, "Regulations shouldnot be viewed as a deterrent, but more as guardrails that have been put in place to ensure that things continue to function smoothly. India has one of the most fintech-friendly regulatory framework in place, UPI is a by-product of this. With the US, there is a lot of clarity on the regulations and compliance requirements and everyone adheres to this diligently. Keeping an eye on the compliance piece has ensured that it has been smooth sailing for us from day one."
On his learnings from building a fintech, Raghunandan says, "In an industrythat is constantly improving itself, always strive to be five steps ahead. Second, adapt to every single challenge. It is the best way to stay ahead of the curve and finally, keep moving forward, challenge yourself constantly, adapt to improving technology."
Commenting on his future plans for their company growth, says Raghunandan, "Immigrants have an urgent need to deposit money to their bank accounts which can be accessed in exchange for services and purchases from necessities to renting out a place to stay. Zolve currently works with banks in the US and India to seamlessly provide consumers access to financial products without paying any premium or coughing up any security deposit. It underwrites the risks, which has enabled banks in foreign countries to extend their services to Zolve customers."
On offering services to migrants moving to US other than India, he says, "Zolve is on course to becoming a full-stack financial services provider with products focused on instant remittance, crypto, insurance, and loans in the pipeline. We have already opened up our services to immigrants to the US from other countries, including, UK, Canada, Germany, Brazil, and Australia."
FACTSHEET
- Amount of funding received: $55 million
- Year of inception: 2020
- Number of employees: 200+
- No. of app downloads: 3,00,000+ consumer signups on our platform within six months of being live.
- Current Turnover: Zolve's valuation is over INR1,575 crore.
