Page 22 - Fintech Sector

Protean, PayNearby partner for providing credit services on ONDC network

Protean eGov Technologies and fintech platform PayNearby have collaborated for providing credit services on the ONDC network for last-mile borrowers and MSMEs. Once launched, the marketplace will also allow for easy discovery of various lending products at affordable pricing, according to a statement. "In this partnership, Protean will serve as an ONDC technology service provider that facilitates availability of credit for last-mile borrowers across the country through PayNearby's well entrenched Distribution as a Service (DaaS) network," it said. Speaking to PTI, Protean eGov Managing Director and CEO Suresh Sethi said there are several people who are not digitally enabled to even get into the account aggregator framework and get credit against their data, or consent for it to be used. "We are looking at this as a sort of intervention which can leverage the physical network provided by PayNearby and the last mile agent can then provide an assisted service and onboarding people to

Indian fintech sector: A resilient green shoot of the start-up ecosystem

India maintained its position as the third-highest funded fintech industry globally, following the US and UK, similar to last year

Paytm rallies 12% as Vijay Shekhar Sharma buys 10.3% stake from Antfin

On closing of this transaction, Sharma's shareholding in Paytm (direct and indirect) will increase to 19.42 per cent, whereas Antfin's shareholding will reduce to 13.5 per cent

Enkash expects business to grow by 36% to Rs 250 crore this fiscal

Fintech firm Enkash expects its business to grow by 36 per cent to USD 30 million, about Rs 250 crore, in this fiscal on account of digitisation in small and medium business in the accounting segment, a senior official of the company said. Ascent Capital-backed Enkash founder Hemant Vishnoi told PTI the company focuses on spends management of small and medium enterprises that have over Rs 10 crore annual turnover and expects the customer base to double in the current fiscal. "We closed last financial year closer to USD 22 million revenue and we are targeting close to USD 30 million this year. We had a growth of 2.5 to 5 times on multiple business metrics," Vishnoi said. The company expects its new platform "Olympus", which combines payable, receivable and reconciliation in one suite, will be a key growth driver for the company. "We have closer to 10,000 customers and more than 250,000 businesses connected on our platform. We expect two-fold growth in terms of businesses on our ...

Paytm up 4% as loan disbursements more-than-double in July to Rs 5,194 cr

During the month of July, Paytm catered to 93 million average monthly transacting users (MTU), up 19 per cent year-on-year (YoY)

Elon Musk pursues financial services in wake of rivals' failed attempts

US tech companies have struggled in their attempts to take on banking behemoths, often scaling back their ambitions in the face of competition and protracted approval processes

Indian fintech start-up funding plunges 67% to $1.4 bn in 1st half of 2023

This decline in funding was largely due to the downward trend in early-stage investments, which plunged 81 per cent and 68 per cent from H1 2022 and H2 2022 respectively

More room for players in fintech space: Paytm CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma

Comments come after Jio Financial Services' entry into lending space

Paytm to generate free cash flow by year end, says CEO Vijay Shekhar

Fintech firm One97 Communications, which operates under the Paytm brand, expects to generate free cash flow by the end of this year, a top company official said on Saturday. Paytm founder and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma, in an earnings call, said that growth for the company in the June 2023 quarter came on account of expansion in payments, financial services and commerce business. "We are on our committed guidelines of becoming free cash flow positive by the year-end," Sharma said. Paytm has reported a narrowing of loss to Rs 358.4 crore in the first quarter ended June 30, 2023. The company had posted a loss of Rs 645.4 crore in the same period a year ago. Its revenue from operations increased by 39.4 per cent to Rs 2,341.6 crore during the reported quarter from Rs 1,679.6 crore in the June 2022 quarter. The company said its merchant payments volume (GMV) grew 37 per cent year-on-year to Rs 4.05 lakh crore in the April-June quarter of FY 2023-24. Sharing an update on the RBI's bar

RBI signals greater scrutiny of fintech industry amid funding drought

Fintechs will need to devote their attention to governance, compliance, business conduct, and adopting risk mitigation practices for long-term business stability

Sachin Bansal's fintech firm Navi lays off nearly 200 employees: Report

In addition to the layoffs, several individuals within the company have resigned over the past few months, including mid-to-senior level employees and leaders

Fibe eyes upskilling space for lending even as ed-tech faces crunch

The company, which averages around Rs 40 crore in monthly topline sales in the category, partners with upskilling platforms to lend credit to consumers

Fintech firm BharatPe appoints Pankaj Goel as chief technology officer

Fintech firm BharatPe Group has appointed former Razorpay senior executive Pankaj Goel as the chief technology officer. Prior to joining BharatPe, Pankaj was the head of payments engineering at Razorpay. He will report to BharatPe chief financial officer and interim CEO Nalin Negi, the company said in a statement on Wednesday. "With a seasoned engineering leader like Pankaj joining the team, we are confident that we will be able to build best-in-class fintech products that will further enable the next level of growth for the BharatPe Group of Companies," Negi said. Goel has held senior positions at various companies, including Intuit, Trilogy, and Sun Microsystems.

Lot of global investor interest in India right now: Arkam Ventures MD

We expect more foreign limited partners to put money into India, says Bala Srinivasa, MD, Arkam Ventures

Why can fintech sector ecosystem in India survive funding winter

The fintech space has witnessed a 60 per cent year-to-date slump in funding

Travel fintech firm Scapia raises $9 mn for operations, tech capability

Start-up converts customers' everyday expenses into travel rewards stored in a co-branded card

Fintech firm Scapia raises $9 mn in funding round led by Matrix Partners

Fintech firm Scapia has raised USD 9 million (about Rs 74 crore) in a seed funding round led by Matrix Partners India for scaling up its co-branded credit card business, the company said on Wednesday. Tanglin Venture Partners, Binny Bansal's 3STATE Ventures and notable angel investors such as Keki Mistry (HDFC CEO) also participated in the funding round. Scapia is a travel fintech company on a mission to make travel accessible through its suite of financial products. It has launched co-branded credit card in partnership with Federal Bank which has been developed to target travelers. "We are excited to partner with our investors to help us scale and meet these customer needs. We see a massive opportunity for Scapia - less than 5 per cent of the population currently have credit cards and India is projected to have 200 million credit cards in circulation by 2030," Scapia, Founder Anil Gotetti said. The company has also built a travel platform within the app to enable customers to ...

Paytm can add 15 mn new customers for soundbox devices in next 2-3 years

Company has first-mover advantage in this space, but the competition is getting aggressive too

Google to set up its global fintech operations centre in Gujarat: Pichai

Internet giant Google will set up its global fintech operation centre at GIFT City in Gujarat, its CEO Sundar Pichai said on Friday after meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi here. Pichai also said that his company continues to invest in India though its USD 10 billion India Digitisation Fund. Modi is visiting the US from June 21 to June 24 at the invitation of President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden. Besides Pichai, the prime minister at an interaction with top CEOs also met Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Apple CEO Tim Cook, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and AMD CEO Lisa Su, among others "Today we are announcing the opening of our global fintech operations centre in GIFT City, Gujarat. It will cement India's fintech leadership, thanks to UPI, and Aadhaar. We are going to build on that foundation and take it globally," Pichai said. The Indian-origin CEO said it is exciting to see the progress that the country has made, particularly around the vision of Digital India and the economic .

Fintech City will make TN an unparalleled hub in financial tech: Minister

The proposed financial technology tower of Fintech City being set up in Chennai is expected to bring in investments worth Rs 1,000 crore in its first phase, Tamil Nadu Industries Minister T R B Rajaa said. Chief Minister M K Stalin, on Saturday, laid the foundation stone for setting up the Fintech City and a Fintech tower at an outlay of Rs 370 crore that is expected to generate 90,000 jobs in the state. The Financial Technology Tower, which will come up in Nandambakkam in the city, is expected to generate 7,000 new jobs in the state in the initial phase, Rajaa said. "As the first phase of development of TN FinTech City, the Fintech tower in Nandambakkam, Chennai will attract over Rs 1,000 crore investments and generate 7,000 employment opportunities for Tamil Nadu and make the state an unparalleled hub in financial technology (sector)," Rajaa said in a social media post. "It will shine as the central node for fintech companies in TN. Today, we have not just laid the foundation sto