FINO PayTech Expanding its Horizon

Rajeev Aror
Chief Operating Officer, FINO PayTech Ltd
Rajeev Aror Chief Operating Officer, FINO PayTech Ltd
Rajeev Arora
Chief
Operating Officer, FINO PayTech Ltd

Talking about the IT in payments, the whole world is getting transformed due to IT developments in day-today operations. One of the key things is people are looking more at the end product and how the customer is benefitting from technology that he’s putting up rather than the technology itself, says Rajeev Arora, Chief Operating Officer, FINO PayTech Ltd., in conversation with the Elets News Network (ENN)

Kindly tell us about the concept behind FINO PayTech company.

When we were setting up, the idea was to be able to provide financial services to the customers at the lowest price possible. So we were focused on micro customers and we were always focused on providing all the financial services to the customers. There are lots of undermined customers that still exist. These are customers who have balances but not enough to excite the large banks and they are underserved today. Our focus has always been in this segment because we believe it can be served efficiently and economically well with the multi product offering. So we will continue this journey. As a payments bank, we will provide all four financial products i.e. saving, remittance, lending and insurance either directly or through partners to the customers.

How do you pursue development within the IT sector?

Talking about the IT in payments, the whole world is getting transformed due to IT developments in dayto- day operations. One of the key things is people are looking more at the end product and how the customer is benefitting from the technology that he is putting up rather than the technology itself. So mobile is a big conversation, self service is a big conversation and instant gratification is a big conversation. Banks are thinking out of the box and using everything else ensuring that the customer gets the service at all points of time.

rajeev_aroraHow do you rate Indian banks and other financial institutions as in their capabilities and willingness to adopt new technologies as compared to other western countries?

The technology being used in banks in India is at par if not ahead of others. Some of the new entrants are taking the technology to the next level and looking at building a very different international platform than what it has been in the past. Everything in the past was lending-oriented whereas now people are saying that lending is only one part of the business and transactions are the bigger part of the business and let me build something which focuses and delivers the transactions. Everything else is a by-product. People are looking at the transactions rather than just the loans and accounts.

We generally view customers into two segments –urban and rural. What strategy do you have for each one of these?

I am trying to catch up both legs of customers i.e the rural end as well as the urban-end focusing on the same contiguous segment living in two different geographies. We call them mass market, which are customers who earn 3 to 5 lakhs annually.

There have been a lot of IT initiatives to launch these operations. Kindly share about them as well.

We started our journey as a technology company to provide technology to the other people. So technology is the core and it continues to be the first brick which we lay in launching any operation. We were the pioneers in biometrics and smart cards in India. It has become mainstream now. We continue to focus on biometrics because we believe that it is an enabler for the customer segment that we work in and we continue to invest in Aadhar. We are investing a lot in mobile banking because our view is that while the customer may start his day today, with us assisting him in the transaction gradually he will move on and take services by himself.

There has been a lot of talk about Unified Payment interface. What’s your take on it?

It’s a revolutionary approach. It has taken care of two things. It has taken tokenlisation to the next level. You can make any ally or an acronym to make a payment. Second, they have taken security to the next level wherein the authentication is applicable only to the customer’s device. Anyone can originate a transaction from the mobile, anyone can accept and pay for that transaction without having to worry about the security or their connections getting compromised. If right amount of incentives are provided, say in terms of lower interchange for the merchant and maybe some incentive for using UPI for the customers, this can take India to the next level.

Banks are thinking out of the box and using everything else ensuring that the customer gets the service at all points of time

Do you have any expansion plans?

We are following fiscal and digital. We will add some branches which will be more like hubs, which will be serving the customers. We are also looking at providing self service terminals and free wi-fi at our branches so that customer can route the connectivity and try and experience the transaction himself. The whole concept of independently being able to consume this service and instant privacy are the things which I think people will enjoy and gradually migrate. We are starting with 400 branches going to 1,500 branches and spread over 8 to 9 states and that is the plan.

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