A Lender to New-to-Credit Millennials V. Raman Kumar, Founder Chairman, CASHe believes that key to retaining customers in the fintech space is to provide a seamless customer experience and also to provide industry first value-added services that help customers achieve their financial goals.

CASHe was launched with an objective to be a credit-led fintech, making credit accessible to millions of underserved and new-to-credit millennials. "By evaluating credit risk using our own proprietary algorithms and by eliminating manual processes and leveraging technology to underwrite loans, we are able to provide quicker credit and other related financial products to this cohort," says V. Raman Kumar, Founder Chairman, CASHe.

The Social Loan Quotient (SLQ), the startup's proprietary AI, ML-based algorithm assesses the risk of a borrower based on the user's social and mobile data footprints. "The model goes beyond traditional credit-risk metrics and assesses the goodness quotient in the borrower and the ability to repay. An individual with no history in the Indian financial system, but whom our SLQ engine determines has a reasonable propensity to repay, can get a loan from CASHe. Hence, the company lends to young working professionals who are either near-prime or subprime borrowers with or without a prior credit history," adds Kumar.

Kumar believes that key to retaining customers in the fintech space is to provide a seamless customer experience and also to provide industry first value-added services that help customers achieve their financial goals.

Says Kumar, "We gain and retain customers by offering a number of value-added services offering Travel Now Pay Later payment methods on IRCTC. Our QR-based offline payment method has found acceptance at various retail merchants across India. Besides providing house rentals through a credit line to our customers, we offer digital gold and an innovative GOLDe rewards program that is very popular with our users. We have also introduced wealth management services through our acquisition of Sqrrl, a WealthTech platform, which offers services like Mutual Funds, FDs, SIP, Goal-based, and roundoff investments to our existing user base. All this has resulted in increased customer stickiness and more importantly, help our customers to make the right financial decisions to improve their financial well-being."

The startup has been profitable for four consecutive years. "Profitability involves identifying and validating your business model, achieving product/market fit, building a strong customer base, managing costs, maximizing revenue streams, and expanding and scaling our business," says Kumar.

"Also, being in a regulated industry provides us an opportunity to make a positive impact on society by providing financial services that meet the needs of underserved communities and promoting financial inclusion."

The four-year-old company has has adopted several strategies to prepare for future growth and is banking on its existing services. "We believe that new-age tech-led lending companies need to offer a range of loan products and services that appeal to different customer segments for their various needs. This might involve developing new loan products or partnering with other companies to offer complementary financial services," Kumar signs off.