Digital enablement & process transformation for a leading insurance broker

According to Praxis Global Alliance, in 2022, the BFSI sector in India contributed more than one-third of the total expenditure of US$ 30.5B on analytics by companies, excluding the IT sector.

The last risk change (change in the risk weight on consumer credit) was probably done several years ago. This is the strongest signal yet from the RBI that the regulator believes that there is stress and overheating in the unsecured consumer loan segment

Flipkart has partnered with insurtech firm Coverfox Insurance to offer a plug-and-play model. Pine Labs reported a 37% jump in operating revenue to Rs 1,280.5 crore in FY23. HealthifyMe posted a 1.2X jump in its operating revenue while slightly narrowing its losses

Successful digital transformations are a lot like percentage tennis – figuring out the strengths of the organization, its key (business) priorities and then ensuring razor-sharp focus on the process en route to the desired destination.

Additionally, disbursement in the Indian lending market witnessed a growth of 11 percent and reached Rs 174 trillion in FY22, compared to Rs 11.4 trillion in FY1 17, with a record growth of CAGR 72 percent.

But beyond the numbers, the last two years of the pandemic have fundamentally transformed the sector and accelerated the pace of change – from the perspective of insurers, the healthcare ecosystem, consumers, and the regulator.

Two emerging models - co-lending and BNPL- have been among the hot topics of discussion in the BFSI space.

India has the highest number of fintech adopters in the world at 87%, compared world at 87%, compared with its global peers, according to government data.

At the early stage, valuation of a startup is more of a qualitative analysis. As it progresses towards a mature stage, it increasingly becomes more scientific and data based, relying on market share, revenue and cash flows.

NPCI-owned card platform RuPay dominates a third of the debit-card market. NPCI rules the mobile-payment market with UPI. But the credit-card segment will be a tough nut to crack, with the home-grown platform lagging its seasoned American rivals on many counts

The fledgling sector faces a number of regulatory and licensing hurdles before it can begin generating profits

Will RBI’s digital currency give a fillip to fintech sector?

Tech entrepreneurs are developing subscribable plans to help people manage their OPD expenses. While these products seem beneficial, the companies face multiple industry and regulatory challenges

Fintech leads the sectoral pack with the potential to add 15 unicorns. Logistics and agritech are jointly expected to create 13 unicorns in the coming months

In the public domain, multi-family offices are strictly viewed as wealth management and advisory firms that are meant for the ultra-rich.

Post the festive season, the BFSI space came back into action. This week, there have been some significant developments, with PM Modi launching two RBI schemes and Fino Bank being listed. ET BFSI brings you a recap of all that has happened this week.

Health insurance is emerging to be the fastest growing segment, rising 24% between Q2FY19 and Q2FY22, in the non-life insurance sector, according to the data collated by Praxis Global Alliance.

ESG will increasingly become a critical element in raising capital for many firms and PE-VC investors in India. CSR being core to company ethos, alongside ESG, is built around the concept of value creation for stakeholders, regulators, employees, bankers, and PE-VCs.

With a focus on offering a full suite of digital products, Pine Labs is walking beyond its PoS domain. Amid an evolving market and digitalisation, it has started a new growth phase with diversification. As Pine Labs gets ready for an IPO next year, a lot rides on how it keeps its head up against growing competition.

Industry experts believe that this move will push more SaaS companies to move overseas and chase international clients.

According to a consulting firm Praxis Global Alliance’s report titled ‘Evolution of Wealth Management’ (published on September 06, 2019), India’s wealth management space is led by domestic players accounting for ~77.5% share by assets under management (AUM). In the top 20 wealth management (WM) companies, domestic companies lead with an ~80% AUM.

FinTech startups have outshined this year, and are leading in achieving the unicorn status. ET BFSI provides a rundown of the top 10 fundings in the FinTech space during August.

Shishir Mankad of Praxis Global Alliance expects that 2.5-3 lakh employment opportunities, both direct and indirect, would be created by insurtech industry by 2024.

Not having a physical branch saves neo-banks bucket loads of money while also making the entire process convenient and cost-effective for the customer. However, there are several other challenges that neo-banks are facing. ETBFSI explores.

Generation Z is driving a technology-led boom in personal finance

The Covid pandemic jolted businesses and axed growth. But as it spurred digitisation, the pandemic also gave way to lending FinTechs the opportunity to expand their financial products and reach the underserved

The Indian fintech sector is attracting tremendous attention from investors and entrepreneurs alike. What are the main reasons and the global implications?

Four of the Indian Fintechs have already entered the unicorn club in the first half of 2021 with the number likely to increase. The list has been prepared based on the total funds raised and unicorn status achieved by the FinTechs.

Service at the push of a button. The rapid growth of internet use, expanding smartphone ownership and lower data costs have been major factors in enabling the growth of the fintech industry.

While travel, hospitality, multiplex businesses that require physical contact with customers lie in tatters due to the pandemic, few industries are being spurred by it and are reaping huge gains.

The Covid-19 pandemic took a toll on start-ups raising funds in 2020, analysts say

Top Unified Payments Interface (UPI) players in the country saw fewer transactions in April, in line with overall UPI payments dipping for the first time in a year last month. Phone Pe, Google Pay and Paytm, however, have held on to their market share despite the loss in volumes.

Maintains top position in UPI apps, followed by Google Pay

It doesn’t bother Paytm whether its customers are using UPI, wallets, or cards as long as the transaction happens within its ecosystem. It has delinked its growth from mobile payments. Paytm wants to use its platform to sell multiple financial services such as digital gold, mutual funds, insurance, etc. Is wallet as a model losing its biggest exponent?

Indian FinTechs have made their mark all over the world in the last few years and they are cruising on the wave of innovation. According to reports, there are about 100 Unicorns in India with a combined valuation of $240 billion. FinTechs are at the forefront of the start-ups space and many are likely to become Unicorns soon. Here is the list of 15 FinTechs that can become India’s next Unicorns.

Consider the facts: Cybercrimes in India caused losses of INR 1.25T in 2019, cyberattacks on Indian entities almost trebled from 0.4M in 2019 to 1.16M in 2020.

UPI has become the Suez Canal of Indian digital payments. Too big to be ignored, its huge popularity and ubiquitous nature have also made it a choking point for transactions. To continue smooth growth of digital payments in the country, it is high time to ease the pressure on the payment gateway and banks.

This week two Indian FinTech start-ups, Cred and Groww have attained the Unicorn status as investors bet heavily on the growth of digitalisation in India's financial sector. Four FinTech Soonicorns, or firms with $500 million valuations, have emerged since January 2020.

With the COVID-19 pandemic, the move to digital has become even more important and with that, the growth of India’s financial technology players.

Contextually, 43 Indian companies raised $3.6B through IPOs in the public markets in 2020, as compared to $1.8B in the previous year.

With merchants driving transactions growth, Paytm’s payments bank may well be rejuvenating the brand

RBI wrote that it had received requests from various stakeholders, including the Indian Banks’ Association, for extending the timeline, keeping in view the Covid-19 related disruptions

Last year, RBI announced that private entities, subject to certain requirements, would be eligible to apply for an NUE license

With the startup ecosystem blooming in India, the number of such funds rose from 29 in 2014 to 88 funds last year

Nearly 18.2% of total funding raised by Indian startups went into fintech firms across 131 deals

Almost 18.2% of whole funding raised by Indian startups went into fintech companies throughout 131 offers WhatsApp Funds might have acquired the regulatory nod, will it be capable of catch as much as its opponents?

A generational shift is underway in the way large investors especially HNIs evaluate companies. Investment firm scan no longer delegates consideration of ESG issues; instead, fund managers must actively incorporate ESG considerations in their investment thesis. Financial institutions have the capital, solutions, and expertise to contribute profitably to social progress by investing in the right companies. This can create a virtuous cycle in which the improving welfare of society at large generat

Praxis Global Alliance has added another seasoned expert to its Financial Services practice in the form of Vishal Bhave.

Bhave has two decades of experience across various businesses in financial services

The year 2020 for FinTechs, as akin to the larger BFSI sector in general, was defined by numerous occurrences and disruptions that were brought in line largely by the COVID-19 pandemic, its resultant lockdown and restrictions in mobility. ETBFSI highlights five noteworthy trends that occurred in the Indian FinTech space in 2020.

Beware! As they say, there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch, and this is especially true in the financial domain. Just as we had started to boast about the homegrown Unified Payments Interface (UPI) – an inclusive, user-friendly and largely free digital payments ecosystem developed and run by the umbrella entity National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI) – the Reserve Bank of India gave the green light to yet another New Umbrella Entity (NUE) in the retail payments space.

Sujan Sinha brings over three decades of experience in banking and retail lending to the leading management consulting firm, amassed during a distinguished career across a number of leading players in the landscape. At Axis Bank (formerly UTI Bank), he set up the retail lending business and was part of the core team that led the formation of a joint venture NBFC as well as the bank’s strategic investments in other NBFCs and credit bureaus.

As banks and NBFC’s reset post-COVID, they will need to rethink their business models. The wave of digitization has accelerated significantly, which will need customer and operational journeys to be re-imagined. Further, many of the underwriting and risk management models will need to be altered, as the COVID impact on customers’ repayment ability gets factored in.

FinTechs are rising in India from Minicorns to Soonicorns to Unicorns. India has a total of 26 Unicorn startups out of which six are the FinTechs. While experts and investors believe that this number will increase, Praxis Global Alliance has prepared an exclusive list of 17 Soonicorn in the FinTech space. Soonicorn term is used for those startups which have the potential to become Unicorn. Unicorn is a startup with a value of $1 billion.

With about 400 million users, many of whom are actively engaged, WhatsApp is well-placed in P2P payments. However, roughly half the UPI payments are for commerce, and this is where WhatsApp will have to think through new use cases to take on the incumbents

It is a platform that processed more than 2 billion transactions in October. Twenty-one third-party applications are active on it, along with 140 lenders. Yet, it is dominated by two large payment applications with a third new entrant now threatening to play disruptor.

Earlier in September, the Reserve Bank of India has released K V Kamath led Committee report that was formed to make recommendations on the required financial parameters to be factored in the resolution plans under the ‘Resolution Framework for COIVD19-related Stress’ along with sector specific benchmark ranges for such parameters. Know why experts think that the report marks a good beginning to the challenging task of dealing with the impact of COVID-19.

Can we expect to see newer business models emerge as the economy restarts post the pandemic and banks and NBFCs are pushed towards prudent lending for retrieving businesses?

Arun will be leading the Asset Management and Capital Markets segments within Financial Services at Praxis and will spearhead client engagements on issues ranging from Strategy, Customer Engagement and Acquisition, Digital Transformation, Operational and Service Excellence and Organizational Effectiveness.

Policymakers have a tough job, and the COVID crisis is making them choose between options, each looking worse than the other. The RBI is respected for its track record of steering the economy and the banking system away from trouble

The diversification in business mix allows banks to be highly levered, and thereby reduce the cost of lending for its customers.

We have come out with 3 design principles for re-accelerating the trade digitization journey, which has been lagging because of several factors in spite of inconveniences experienced by customers.

Digital lenders have helped small businesses access funding, but a liquidity crunch looms

Keep abreast of significant corporate, financial and political developments around the world.

Banks, NBFCs and many financial institutions closed the year with a tough time, but not FinTechs.

Deal flow is making a buzz as well. From nearly 450 deals a decade ago, the market now sees close to 900. Not only are funds clinching more deals, but cheque sizes are also becoming larger, with growth in average deal size at $42 million in 2019 from the earlier $18 million.

People visit Hyderabad to get a whiff of its former glory of Nawabs and their fascination with pearls that lingers on in shops in every nook and corner.

Economic Times | Fintech startups that offer stocks and mutual fund investments are relying on specialised content to ensure investors do not drop off, at a time when stock market volatility is on the up.

Affirma Capital, a newly formed, independent private equity firm to be managed by the team from Standard Chartered Private Equity, has agreed to invest in the Tirupati Group, a leading nutraceuticals-focussed contract research and manufacturing company in India.

The world always had nomads. But increasing demands, altering lifestyle and living in a digitized world along with the restraints of time have made way for what nowadays is being called the “digital nomads.”

The deals are driven by a new regulation in December 2017, which allowed PE firms to come in as promoters in insurance firms and exit after a lock-in period of five years