Archive: January 6, 2022

IIFL Home Finance Ltd. (IIFL HFL) in collaboration with Asian Development Bank (ADB)

IIFL Home Finance Ltd. (IIFL HFL) in collaboration with Asian Development Bank (ADB), launches 1st event from the flagship Kutumb series to promote green affordable housing in India

Chennai: 6th January 2022: IIFL Home Finance Ltd. (IIFL HFL), in collaboration with Asian Development Bank (ADB), organised its flagship event Kutumb which is an initiative to promote Green Affordable Housing in India. The event took place at India Habitat Centre, New Delhi on December 14th, 2021 with the presence of Mr. S.K. Hota (MD, National Housing Bank) & Mr. Nirmal Jain (Founder & Chairman, IIFL Group) as chief guests. The event also had speakers from development finance institutions (DFIs) such as Asian Development Bank and Proparco (an arm of Agence Française de Développement Group (AFD Group).

Under the project ‘Resilient & Green Affordable Housing for Economically Weaker Section (EWS) and Low-Income Group (LIG) categories in India’, IIFLHFL, with the support of ADB, will be hosting series of it’s flagship event ‘Kutumb’ at various locations across the country. The objective of Kutumb is to enable and support the green building ecosystem in the affordable housing sector in India. Kutumb, Delhi Chapter, titled ‘Climate Resilient & Green Affordable Housing in India’ focussed on affordable, low-carbon and resilient homes. The programme witnessed over 120 attendees, a mix of housing developers, financiers, subject matter experts and consultants.

Mr. Monu Ratra (ED and CEO, IIFLHFL) said, “The pandemic has brought in high consciousness towards green and sustainable construction amongst the developers, as well as the homebuyers. Also, considering buildings contribute around 35% of carbon emissions and with the vast majority of housing stock yet to be built in India, it is imperative to hold platforms such as Kutumb to build an ecosystem to foster green, sustainable and affordable housing in India.”

Sharing her views, Ms. Susan Olsen, Senior Investment Specialist for South Asia, ADB said, “Building climate-resilient and sustainable communities begins by giving access to affordable and green homes, particularly for lower income groups that are highly vulnerable to climate change impacts. IIFL HFL is our partner in broadening the scope of green affordable housing in India.”

The event witnessed discussions and deliberations between industry experts such as Priya Sunder (Senior Investment Officer, Asian Development Bank), Diane Jegam (Directrice Régionale PROPARCO Asie du Sud chez Proparco), nationally renowned architect Ashok B Lall (Principal Architect, Ashok B. Lall Architects), Mohua Mukherjee (Economist & Green Finance Professional, Independent Director, IIFL Home Finance Ltd.), Dr. Sejal Patel (Professor & Chair, Faculty of Planning, CEPT), Ravi Aggarwal (Co-founder & MD, Signature Global Group of Companies), and Saswat Bandyopadhyay (Project Director, CEPT). The event was conducted in a panel discussion format supported by presentations. The panels focused on subjects ‘Sustainable Finance in Affordable Housing’ and ‘Importance of Climate Resilience in Affordable Housing’ in India.

In the series of Kutumb, the next event is likely to be scheduled in Ahmedabad, in the first week of February, where IIFLHFL and ADB aim to bring together the affordable housing developers, planners, architects, consultants and potential homebuyers on one forum and address subjects relevant to green affordable housing in the area.

Propelld to strengthen its in-house tech capability by FY 2022; plans to hire 30 tech experts

06, January 2022: India’s fastest-growing education financing platform, Propelld, announced its plan to recruit 30 employees in its tech team by FY 2022 to strengthen its in-house tech capabilities.

With over 135 employees in the company, the strategic move aims at expanding the tech teams primarily. Through a virtual interview process, the education financing platform intends to recruit tech experts for the roles of Software Development Engineer (SDE)-1, SDE-2, Lead Engineers, Engineering Manager, DevOps Engineer, UI Developer, and UI/UX Designer.

Job seekers across the country can apply through various channels, including LinkedIn, campus placement drives, Naukri.com, Propelld’s career page, alumni network, employee referrals, and hiring agencies.

Mr. Satendra Singh, CTO, Propelld, said, “As our user-base had grown from 1000s in a year to 10,000s in a month, we plan to strengthen our technical capabilities to handle the increased traffic. With our hiring spree of tech experts, we aim to ensure that our developers get the right direction by working with experienced engineering leaders. Propelld is witnessing a two-fold growth. We are vertically expanding with an increase in users across demographics and also plan to introduce new financial products for the education sector.”

“A robust technical infrastructure will further ensure the efficiency and effectiveness of all our products. Besides, a diverse and strengthened tech team will accelerate Propelld’s product experiments while staying up-to-date with the latest technology and market trends. We are looking forward to augmenting our tech ecosystem with promising talent. ” he added.

Making financing accessible across the education sector, Propelld continues to scale up its operations. The company advocates a progressive work culture offering time-to-time mental health weeks and health insurance to its employees. With flexible working hours for the tech team, Propelld also sponsors up-skilling courses for its employees while rewarding the team with performance bonuses and ESOPs.

About Propelld

Propelld is a Series-B funded fintech startup working in education financing. Propelld partners with educational institutions to help its students finance their education through a quick online loan process. Having an objective of democratizing access to education, Propelld aims to increase India’s gross enrollment ratio (GER) by providing flexible financing options to the entire education ecosystem.

India InsurTech Association (IIA) Welcomes eBaoTech as Leading Sponsor

New Delhi, 6th January 2022: India InsurTech Association (IIA), a pioneering non-profit insurtech industry organization, and eBaoTech, a world-leading digital Insurance solution provider, today signed a memorandum of understanding for a year-long collaboration. This partnership is meant to grow the insurance ecosystem in India and bring smarter digital solutions to the doorsteps of relevant stakeholders. While IIA brings the network and reach, eBaoTech brings a cloud-based open API PaaS, InsureMo, for insurers, brokers/agencies, affinity channels, Fintechs and other insurtech startups.

Launched in 2017, InsureMO now has 300+ global installations from nimble start-ups to $7bn insurers. In India, InsureMO serves insurers, brokers, Fintechs, eCommerce players and banks across health, life, and general insurance. Designed to support business scale, InsureMO is able to handle massive Volume, Variation, and Velocity in mobile age. The platform issues 170K policies on average per day, was able to manage 65 Million policies/day on peak time and has over 3000 products from 40+ insurance line of business, ready to use.

Co-founded by Shwetank Verma, Subhajit Mandal, and Prerak Sethi, IIA’s goal is to increase the velocity of digital transformation across the Indian insurance industry. The association already includes 80+ insurtech members and facilitates networking, undertakes insurtech policy initiatives, builds relationships between different government and private stakeholders, and organises focused thought leadership sessions for its diverse constituents.

Speaking about this, Mr. Prerak Sethi, Director and Co-founder of IIA, said, “Through IIA, we aim to drive strategic initiatives that benefit the insurtech community in India. The partnership with eBaoTech is a step in this direction. Given that eBaoTech is a technology solution provider for the global insurance industry, it augurs well for promoting collaboration between the global insurtech ecosystem and our network of insurtech start-ups, insurers, and other key stakeholders.”

Adding further, Rajat Sharma, CVP, Global Sales and Strategy at eBaoTech, said, “As an open platform, InsureMO is well positioned to power the innovations and connectivity in India insurance ecosystem. With an OpEx business model that allows immediate adoption without enterprise planning or tedious program management, we believe InsureMO would be a great platform to support innovations and fast product iteration for our customers. We look forward to more IIA members onboarding our platform. Digital and contextual insurance is the next big thing, and we support IIA’s efforts in promoting innovative solutions for firms in the insurtech and fintech sectors. It is a win-win for both of us.”

“Association between IIA and eBaoTech is a great step in truly realizing the power of network and technology. IIA strives to bring the ecosystem together and InsureMo is well suited to serve that ecosystem. Working on our strengths, together, we will be able to create a deeper impact making insurance easy for everyone. Through this partnership, eBaoTech would also be able to build deeper partnerships with IIA members, who can utilize InsureMO PaaS on a plug-and-play basis or can be a part of eBaoTech’s cloud marketplace to promote their offerings” stated Saurabh Mehta, AVP, Global Sales and Strategy at eBaoTech.

Insurtech activity in India has increased rapidly since 2017. At one hand we are seeing affinity channels from several sectors launching contextual insurance as offerings on their platform to increase customer stickiness and ancillary revenues, and on the other hand pandemic has further prompted a significant escalation and prioritization of technology initiatives, leading to urgency and acceleration in the deployment of digital solutions by insurers in India and across the world. Accordingly, insurers have a key role in co-creating and adapting their offerings to the new digital environment. In collaboration with IIA and insurtech start-ups, and by leveraging digital platforms, insurance organizations are optimizing their operational workflows and applying intelligent technologies to create new levels of efficiency and service excellence across the entire insurance value chain.

About India InsurTech Association (IIA)

IIA’s goal is to facilitate the promotion of the usage of technology across the insurance value chain in India. The association will promote new digital business models, build collaboration between start-ups and all the other participants of the insurance industry – insurers, reinsurers, intermediaries, TPAs, service providers, investors, and regulators. The association will represent the interests and be the voice of the InsurTech ecosystem in India.

About eBaoTech

eBaoTech is a global leading technology provider for the global insurance industry. Our mission from starting in the year 2000 has been and remains to be “make insurance easy”. Through hard work and full commitment to customer success, eBaoTech has built a strong client base in over 30 countries/markets, covering general, life, and health insurances. Furthermore, eBaoTech’s intense and persistent focus on addressing the fundamental pain points of insurance technologies through deep-tech innovation has yielded significant differentiation in the global marketplace. For more information, please visit the company website at https://www.ebaotech.com/ and the PaaS enablement site at https://www.insuremo.com/en-IN

Pegasystems Appoints Katherine Parente as Chief People Officer

Hyderabad/Bangalore– January 6, 2022 – Pegasystems Inc. (NASDAQ: PEGA), the software company that crushes business complexity, today announced it has appointed Katherine Parente as Chief People Officer, effective today. Ms. Parente is responsible for driving Pega’s global people strategy and operations, reporting to Alan Trefler, Pega’s founder and CEO.

In her 20-plus years of human resources experience, Kate has established and led strong international teams across a wide range of HR disciplines within firms in the financial services, technology, and professional services industries. Her areas of expertise include people strategy, compensation and benefits, recognition, organizational and leadership development, workforce planning, and culture and value proposition.

Ms. Parente joins Pega from FactSet Research Systems, a data technology company with more than 10,000 employees across 20 countries servicing over 6,000 financial service firms. As senior vice president of human resources, she was responsible for the global HR strategy across product, content, and technology functions. Prior to that, she was vice president of people at Axiom, a global leader in providing high-caliber, on-demand legal talent. Ms. Parente also held HR management positions with increasing responsibility at Investment Technology Group (ITG, now Virtu Financial) for nearly a decade.

Ms. Parente graduated from the Isenberg School of Management at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst with a degree in Business Management. She also studied human rights at University of Leicester, England. Ms. Parente is a member of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and the Institute for Applied Management and Law (IAML).

Pega employs more than 6,000 people around the globe in The Americas, Europe, and Asia Pacific. The company was recently honored by The Boston Globe, the hometown newspaper of Pega’s global headquarters, as one of the Top Places to Work in Massachusetts for 2021, was named a Best Company for Women to Advance by Parity.org in 2021, and has been recognized around the world as an employer of choice.

Quotes & Commentary:

“Kate brings Pega a wealth of experience and innovative ideas that will enable us to continue to nurture our people and attract new talent to our offices around the world,” said Alan Trefler, founder and CEO, Pegasystems. “It is a pleasure to welcome Kate to Pega at an exciting time in our history as we look to our people function to help power our ongoing growth trajectory.”

“It’s an exciting opportunity to join and lead such a world-class people function that has significantly contributed to Pega’s continued success,” said Katherine Parente. “I look forward to helping further evolve and enhance our approach so we can meet new challenges during a time of unprecedented change in the employment marketplace.”

About Pegasystems

Pega delivers innovative software that crushes business complexity so our clients can make better decisions and get work done. We help the world’s leading brands solve their biggest business challenges: maximizing customer lifetime value, streamlining customer service, and boosting operational efficiency. Pega technology is powered by real-time AI and intelligent automation, while our scalable architecture and low-code platform help enterprises adapt to rapid change and transform for tomorrow. For more information, please visit www.pega.com.

Essential spends maintains highest steady growth at 33%

Essential spends maintains highest steady growth at 33%, discretionary spends take the lowest dip at 14% – according to Axis My India – CSI 

‘Essential’ steady consumptions majorly reflected in southern regions, overall household spending dipped by 3% dip from last month

• Over 10563 people surveyed 71% is from rural India while 29% is from urban India
• Overall household spending has increased for 59%, majorly in Northern regions, 3% dip from last month
• Highest ‘steady’ spends (33%) in essentials and lowest ‘increased’ spends(14%) in non-essential spends in the last 5 months
• Surge in steady spends in health-related items for 40% families, drop by 2% from last month
• Increased media consumption for a majority of 25% of families, Net Score improves from -4 to +1
• Mobility more or same for 91% families, going out the same for short vacations, malls, restaurants etc
• Combined 58% engage with Digital apps / Websites + Social Media and 53% engage with television for news/latest updates and 37% with news paper
• 52% believe that the economy might get affected by the new variant- Omicron
• Majority, 82% believes efforts should be made to provide vaccine booster dose to people. The Government recently announced a phase wise booster dose plan.
• WhatsApp voted as the most frequented app (view of 31%), followed by Facebook (26%) and YouTube (21%)
• 71% believes that 2022 will be much better than 2021

Mumbai, 6^th January 2022:  Axis My India, a leading consumer data intelligence company, released its latest findings of the India Consumer Sentiment Index (CSI), a monthly analysis of consumer perception on a wide range of issues. The month of December reveals a slight dip in increased consumption or surge in steady consumption across the 5 relevant sub-indices. Overall household spending has dipped by 3% in comparison to last month. In terms of essential items, spends remain the ‘same’ for 33% of the families – depicting the highest in the last 5 months. Lowest ‘increased’ spends in the last five months is recorded in non-essential & discretionary products like AC, Car, Refrigerator etc at 14%. Similar consumption in health related items has dropped by 2% and in mobility has surged by 3%.

The January net CSI score, calculated by percentage increase minus percentage decrease in sentiment, was up to +10, from +8 last month

The sentiment analysis delves into 5 relevant sub-indices – Overall household spending, spending on essential and non-essential items, spending on healthcare, media consumption habits & mobility trends.

This month, Axis My India’s Sentiment Index also probed deeper to understand consumer preferences in terms of news consumption and frequently used digital applications. Finally, the January survey also revealed consumers thoughts on 2022.

The surveys were carried out via Computer Aided Telephonic Interviews with a sample size of 10563 people across 36 states. 71% belonged from Rural India while 29% belonged from urban counterparts. In addition, 64% of the respondents were male while 36% of the respondents were female 

Commenting on the December report, Pradeep Gupta, CMD, Axis My India, said,

“While the new year brought along hope and optimism for a better 2022, consumers purse strings suggest otherwise. The lowest dip in non-essential spending is a proof that consumers are curling back to apprehensions triggered by the new variant of the virus and also hoping for a booster dose, something which has recently been announced by the Government. Moreover, the higher preference of web for seeking news only reflect the gradual change in media consumption behaviour owing to consistent lockdown experienced by consumers in the last two years. In addition, the inclination towards WhatsApp, Facebook and YouTube reflects an evolved and unconscious mode of conversing, converging or consuming dialogue/information/media. “

Key findings: 

• Overall household spending has increased for 59% of families which reflects a 3% decrease from the last month. While this increase is majorly reflected in the Northern part of India, the net score is at +50, reflecting the dip in net score by 1 percentage point for 3^rd consecutive month.

• Spends on essentials like personal care & household items has increased for 47% of the families showcasing a surge in the Northern part of India. Spends however remain the same for 33% of the families (the highest in the last 5 months). The net score which was +27 last month comes down to +26 this month.

• Spends on non-essential & discretionary products like AC, Car, Refrigerator has increased for 14% of families, indicating the lowest percentage in the last 5 months. Expenditure nevertheless remains the same for 78% of the families indicating the sentiment of people living in Southern part of India. The net score is stagnant at +6 as last month.

• Consumption on health-related items more or less remains the same for 43% of the families, while a surge is witnessed among 40%. In comparison to last month, while the ‘increase’ in consumption represents an overall dip by 2%, the ‘same’ consumption reflects an overall surge by 2%. The health score which has a negative connotation i.e., the lesser the spends on health items the better the sentiments, has a net score value of -23, which was at -25 previous month.

• Consumption of media has increased for 25% of the families reflecting an increase of 3% from the last month and the highest in the last three months. This surge is reflected among 18-25 YO in Eastern part of India. Consumption remains the same for a majority of 51% families. The overall, the Net score of this month is at +1 as compared to -4 for the previous month.

• 85% families said that they are going out the same for short vacations, mall and restaurants as compared to 81% of families last month. Only 6% of families recorded increase in outgoing activities while 9% reported reduced mobility. The overall mobility score which was at -5 last month is at -3.

On topics of current national interest:

• Axis My India further assessed consumer’s sentiment on their information/news seeking habits. A majority of 53% said that they prefer engaging with television for news/latest updates. These reflect the view of 36-50 YO. A secondary favourite seems to be Newspapers representing the view of 37%, showcasing the choice of 35-50 YO from Western part of India. However, interestingly, a combined 62% of 18-35 YO seems to prefer Digital apps / Websites + Social Media as their number one choice for news consumption. This unravels a potential trend of looking at television and digital mediums as mediums of seeking information along with entertainment.

• Gauging concern regarding the new variant of the virus, 52% believe that the opening up of the economy will get affected by Omicron, while 23% (each) is unsure of its impact on the economy or is of the view that the economy will remain unaffected. In addition, a majority of 82% believes that with regards to the upcoming virus variant, vaccine booster dose should be given to the countrymen instead of exporting vaccines to other countries.

• Exploring consumer’s app preference, Axis My India December survey delved deeper to understand most frequented interfaces. The findings revealed that WhatsApp was the most used app (view of majority, 31%), followed by Facebook (view of 26%) and YouTube (View of 21%). In addition, when consumers were asked to share their preference in terms of Top 1, Top 2 and Top 3 apps choices, it was learnt that ‘Whatsapp (42%) is the number ‘one’ choice while Facebook (34%) and YouTube (27%) denotes the choice of top ‘three’ apps. Moreover YouTube (25%), Facebook(17%) and Instagram (17%) reflect the top ‘three’ choices of consumers in terms of most frequently used applications

• Finally, Axis My India was delighted to report that a massive majority of 71% strongly believes that 2022 will be much better than 2021 on an all-encompassing basis. 

Samco Mutual Fund Launches its First NFO “Samco Flexi Cap Fund”

Chennai, January 6th, 2022:  Samco Mutual Fund today announced the launch of its first NFO “Samco Flexi Cap Fund”. The NFO opens on the 17th of Jan 2022 and closes on the 31st Jan 2022.

Jimeet Modi, Founder and Director of Samco Asset Management Pvt Ltd said

“We are excited to launch SAMCO Flexi Cap Fund as SAMCO’s first fund offering. In line with our goal, the fund is designed as a truly active fund and will aim and endeavour to maintain a high active share. This shall ensure that investors get their money’s worth and a truly differentiated fund when they pay an active asset management fee. This is a refreshing change in a world where closet indexing has become mainstream.”

Samco Flexi Cap Fund follows the 3E strategy to build a portfolio designed to generate a high-risk-adjusted return.

1. Invest in Efficient Companies: The scheme shall invest only efficient companies that have an ability to sustainably generate a high return on capital in cash adjusted for discretionary growth expenditures. SAMCO targets to invest in businesses with 25%+ adjusted return on capital. The scheme shall invest in 25 stocks across market caps from India and the Globe in a proportion of 65% – 35% of the net assets of the scheme. These stocks shall be from universe of 125 companies that have passed SAMCO’s HexaShield framework.

2. At an Efficient Price: The scheme will only invest in securities at reasonable/ efficient prices when the relative yield for stocks is reasonable vis-a-vis the rest of the comparative universe.

3. Maintain an Efficient portfolio turnover and cost: The third pillar of the strategy is aimed at reducing hidden dealing costs and improve performance. Investors believe that Total expense ratio is the only cost that is incurred by them as a part of their investments. But there is also a hidden cost which is not disclosed in any of these figures: the cost of dealing within the fund. When a fund manager or an investor deals in stocks, he or she pays brokerage commissions, securities transaction tax at 0.1 per cent, exchange transaction charges, stamp duty, SEBI fees and the difference between the broker’s bid and offer prices (the spread) often referred to as the impact cost.

Total cost of investments incurred by investors = TER of Scheme + Voluntary dealing cost

SAMCO Mutual fund is the first mutual fund in India that will transparently disclose all voluntary dealing costs. Voluntary dealing costs are all costs incurred by the fund manager for purchases and sales excluding the costs incurred for involuntary transactions such as fund inflows/outflows. This shall be computed as a percentage of the AUM. This will help investors compute the total cost of investments which is a sum of the TER and voluntary dealing costs.

Commenting on the launch Mr Umesh Kumar Mehta, CEO of Samco Asset Management Pvt Ltd said “SAMCO FlexiCap Fund is a unique and a pure equity fund in the Flexi Cap Category by its design. Unlike other funds, it only seeks to invest in Indian Equities and Global Equities. No other assets like corporate debt, REITs, derivatives, etc are permitted which will allow the scheme to be a pure equity scheme.  It’s 25 stock portfolio construction strategy ensures that investors enjoy benefits of reasonable concentration and diversification unlike other strategies which may be overly diversified. Further, investors get exposure to high growth global names and yet since 65% of portfolio will be Indian equities, the applicable taxation would be that of long-term capital gains for equities i.e., 10% after 1 year. This works as a great optimal structure for investors. Further, we are proud to be the first AMC to publish a Unit Holder’s handbook which explains in detail how investors’ money shall be managed. This ensures transparency of process and helps investors have clear expectations from the fund.”

Mrs. Nirali Bhansali, Equity Fund Manager of the SAMCO Flexi Cap Fund said “We have constructed the SAMCO FlexiCap fund as a simple 3-step buy and hold strategy that shall invest in some of the worlds fast growing and capital efficient companies that can compound capital over the long term. Investors will get exposure to high growth companies globally since the fund shall invest 35% of its assets in global stocks. Further, since the strategy is designed to reduce the portfolio turnover, we shall endeavor to have low voluntary dealing costs so that Investors total cost of investment is reasonable. We are excited to set new standards with our disclosures on active share as well voluntary dealing costs.”

The Fund Manager of the scheme shall be Mrs. Nirali Bhansali and the dedicated fund manager for overseas investments shall be Mr. Dhawal Dhanani.

Zee Network’s Marketing Head Krithika Sriram joins India’s leading Plant-based D2C Startup Plix as Chief Growth Officer

Mumbai, January 06, 2022: Plix, a fast-growing clean plant-based nutrition brand for daily wellness and strength, has announced the appointment of Krithika Sriram as Chief Growth Officer. She will spearhead growth, drive the go-to-market strategy for new product lines, extension into new categories, and expansion into international markets. Krithika is passionate about building and scaling up consumer brands and her vision is to make Plix the world’s largest plant-based nutrition and wellness brand.

Krithika has over a decade-long leadership experience across marquee strategy consulting and consumer tech companies such as Bain and Company, Google and Tata Trent. She is a multi-award-winning business leader with experience across strategy consulting, e-commerce, retail and media & entertainment sectors. In her last role, she was spearheading marketing at Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd. as the Senior Vice President for the flagship brand/channel.

Speaking about this, Akash Zaveri, Co-Founder, Plix, said, “Krithika is one of the most dynamic marketing leaders with an illustrious track record of spearheading growth for a diverse set of consumer brands. It is great to have her on board as the Chief Growth Officer of Plix. Her expertise in the development of business strategy, consumer-centric brand building & brand development and revenue initiatives is going to help us drive forward the vision for Plix in the years ahead. At Plix, our vision is to bring clean, plant-based food to every table, launch innovative products as well as enter new markets in the times to come. This and the fact that Krithika believes in the same tenets that Plix does as a brand will enable us to achieve and exceed the goals for the times ahead with her on board.”

Adding her comments, Krithika Sriram, said, “I derive immense satisfaction from helping new age consumer brands grow their base exponentially and expand into high potential markets, address consumer demand through a pioneering product portfolio and engage the consumers deeply with a holistic communication approach. Plix is ushering in a Plant-based revolution by enabling consumers to transition to a healthy, green, clean lifestyle. There is a great need for such sustainable, green and healthy nutrition products all over the world today. Environmental sustainability, access to clean nutrition and good healthcare are causes close to my heart, and I am delighted to take up the mission of making Plix, the world’s number 1 plant-based nutrition brand.”

Krithika’s ability to build and scale up consumer brands is evident from her professional journey. At Tata Trent Ltd, she spearheaded ecommerce P&L, marketing, digital and insights & analytics for the largest businesses of Trent – Westside fashion retail chain and Landmark. At Bain & Company, she defined and implemented digital transformation strategies for large Fortune 500 enterprises in the consumer products and retail sectors.

Krithika is an active speaker/guest lecturer at various IIMs and tier 1 B schools across India. She was an active member of the DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) council at Zee. Krithika is a gold medalist in English Literature & Economics from Delhi University. She has an MBA from IIM Bangalore and was an exchange student for the Global Network for Advanced Management at Yale School of Management, USA. Outside of work, Krithika is an avid reader, an enthusiastic traveler who loves to explore new cultures and meet new people and is a hands-on parent to two children.

EarlySalary crosses Rs. 5,000 Crore loan disbursement in December 2021

Pune (Maharashtra) [India], 6th January 2022: India’s largest consumer lending platform for young professionals – EarlySalary has disbursed 2.5 million loans worth Rs. 5,000 crores since its inception. The company was launched in 2015 and has grown 300% since last year.

The segment of young professionals is one of the fastest-growing segments in the economy. With less than 5% of the market captured by traditional lends, it is safe to say that this segment is grossly under-served. EarlySalary identified this gap and is focused on creating a line of financial products that cater to all credit needs of this segment.

They offer loan options with minimal paperwork and instant approval. EarlySalary is committed to providing a seamless customer experience at affordable costs. By leveraging new-age technologies such as a proprietary ML algorithm and real-time analysis for decision making – it offers loans to its customers in seconds. The company has been successfully able to acquire and manage loans even new to credit customers. This is something that most traditional lending institutions haven’t been able to do.

The company had launched EarlySalary Credit Suite to create a comprehensive credit solution that helps its aspirational customers meet all their financial needs easily and help upgrade their lifestyle. The product offerings include convenient Instant loans & Salary Advances, Instant Personal loans of up to 3 years, a free credit score check, a SalaryCard for credit payments and a ‘Buy Now Pay Later’ feature across thousands of merchants.

EarlySalary operates with a fully digitized and instant decision-making system that allows its customers to borrow funds in seconds. Its affordable interest rates, instant processing, flexible repayment options make it a preferred credit option for its customer. Today, the company boasts of the highest-rated lending app in the country, the highest retention rate, and customer retention enhancing customer life every day. Today, the company disbursed nearly 1 lakh lending transactions a month and is confidently emerging as a market leader in financial solutions for aspirational young working Indians.

Speaking on the occasion, Akshay Mehrotra, Co-Founder and CEO of EarlySalary said, “The Rs. 5,000-crore loan disbursement milestone is a testament to our remarkable resilience as an organization that has made digital credit possible which has consistently helped millions of young individuals. EarlySalary has evolved and matured as a company. The products developed are customer-centric, which has helped in anticipating the customer’ needs and delighting them with better services.”

To this, Ashish Goyal, Co-Founder and CFO of EarlySalary added, “We have been able to double our AUM every quarter and are profitable in doing so. We have managed to capture the fast-growing young professional segment that’s new to credit successfully through our new-age tech. Almost 90% of our loans were auto-decisioned, meaning customers get their loan in seconds.”