An Interview with Rubique | ChannelDrive.in
As SMEs and other organizations look forward to access financial assistance in order to expand their operations, traditional lending process still takes time – this is where a pure play technology driven platform Rubique is coming to the fore and reinventing the way lending is being executed.
It is emphasizing on revolutionizing the lending business by changing the way it works, through technology interventions, Rubique is bridging the gap between lenders & borrowers reducing the processing time significantly.
Manavjeet Singh, CEO & Founder, Rubique speaks with Zia Askari from ChannelDrive.in about the key priorities for the company today and how it is looking ahead.
How have fintech startups like Rubique changing the lending ecosystem in the country?
With the global rise of technology, our traditionally cash-driven country has been witnessing a new yield of fintech players emerging in the market, making it easier for individuals, professionals, and small business owners to access the funds they need. They are bringing digitization to make the lending processes more effective, hassle free and beneficial for all stakeholders.
Previously, financial institutions were reluctant towards lending to hundreds of millions of undocumented and unverifiable Indians without significant financial data, finding it a risky business. Technology intervention is eliminating these barriers which were the growth hurdles for decades in this area.
It is emphasizing on revolutionizing the lending business by changing the way it works, through technology interventions we are able to bridge the gap between lenders & borrowers reducing the processing time significantly. As a result, fintech platforms are able to help customer take informed decision. Additionally, platforms like us which also extends the end-to-end loan fulfilment, offers customers to have single point of interaction & helps to reduce the cost of acquisition for financial institutions. Because of the initial matchmaking through technology, there is more certainty in the entire process lowers the rejection ratio.
What are the advantages or constraints that fintech startups have over a bank?
The biggest differentiation for fintech companies is the speed of execution over banks. Apart from this, Fintech companies have kept customer centric approach to design their products, therefore there is increasing adoption by customer.
However, Fintech startups especially in India complement banks than competing with them, it is more of a give-and-take relationship between fintech start-ups and banks, both the institutions would want to capitalize upon.
When it comes to SMEs financing gap is huge how are startups like yours bridging the gap?
The new age fin-tech lending marketplaces are poised to revolutionize the country’s financial lending business by changing the way it works, by connecting these small businesses to financial institutions on a consolidated platform for quick loan sanction. Such neutral platforms offering a wide range of loan products and end-to-end loan fulfilment allow MSMEs to focus on building their businesses instead of worrying about getting the finance to fulfil the gap in their cash flows or fund their expansion and growth. There are some providing advisory services to the MSME units and doing need based assessment of capital requirement to provide a good product fit of the banks and lenders basis their risk appetite. They also use algorithms, data analytics to comprehend the credit comfort and evaluate the credit-worthiness of the small business owners so that loans can be disbursed in the shortest time period. Technology facilitates these fintech platforms to ease the complicated lending process, enhance speed, and improve customer experience.
What is the role of technology in your business? What all technologies are you employing to make the whole lending process efficient?
Fintech company, Rubique allows lenders and borrowers to discover each other through neutral marketplace platform offering complete transparency. Built on a proprietary matchmaking algorithm, Rubique’s marketplace lending platform offers breakthrough features like – eKYC, real time processing & online approval by direct integration with financial institutions’ systems reducing the processing time significantly.
Unlike other loan aggregator platforms, Rubique focuses on end to end fulfilment through its various technology interventions. The advance technologies used on the platform analyses hundreds of data points to assess the creditworthiness of customers and provide them the offers they are eligible for. Further, the integration with financial institutions’ systems enables Rubique to provide online approval through real-time processing of an application. Overall, these technology interventions have removed the manual efforts in the loan processing system making it smooth.
Which other tech you see yourself embracing in the near future?
India always follows the global footsteps and in technology adoption too, we foresee an era of advance technologies & innovations like big data, machine learning, data science etc. disrupting some of the industries.
Any advice you want to give to the SMEs when they apply for a loan?
The market is changing and so does the dynamics towards SMEs. SMEs are not only getting an access to finance but they have an option to choose the right product too. Having varied risk appetite of financial institutions, it would be better for SMEs to take help of new age fintech platforms to understand the acceptability of their application & creditworthiness and get faster processing time vis-à-vis traditional lending approach.
How do you as an organisation look at the fintech opportunity opened by the governments push towards digital enablement?
Indian Government’s push towards creating an inclusive digital ecosystem is commendable. While constant attempts by previous regimes can also not be undermined, the digital adoption in the country has seen a giant leap, especially in decreasing the digital divide, since the last few years.
This also reflects on the digital adoption within the country. Change in internet users in 2013 was 21.5%, followed by 20.7% in 2014. This figure saw a tremendous jump in 2015 with an approximate change of more than 50% followed by 400 million users in 2016.
Also, despite the fact that an in-depth analysis of demonetisation can only be done after the end of this quarter, its effect has largely been negated due to government’s constant push towards digitisation.
These results have been an outcome of a strengthened digital infrastructure within the country, push towards digital literacy, bringing maximum people to the mainstream economy, launching multiple digital initiatives and e-services, fast-tracking new and ongoing projects, while also encouraging urban users to maximise digital usage in day-to-day activities.
Cumulatively, these developments have resulted in a continuous expansion of the digital ecosystem within the country, a much-desired change for the fintech industry. The increased digital activity has equipped the fintech industry with digital footprints and new region-centric and industry-specific data points to analyse in order to better tap the plethora of opportunities in the Indian market.
This has opened new avenues for development of customer-centric as well as cost-effective products and services paving the way for a more robust growth of the fintech sector.
We at Rubique offer unique tech-led solutions in terms of our matchmaking algorithm and direct integration with financial institutions’ lending systems. With our technology solution, the focus is made on disbursement rather than mere lead generation allowing the customer to get the best deal in the quickest possible time while lowering the cost of customer acquisition for the financial institution. The digital access to finance is massively impacting the MSME sector that has been playing a vital role in the Indian economy for the past five decades.
How big is the size of the market that you are catering today?
The market size of the fintech sector is estimated to be more that USD 33 billion at present. It is further projected to have more than two-fold growth to reach the figure of USD 73 billion by 2020.
