As Indians, we love small and quick loans. It’s much easier to fulfil our financial commitments with them and there’s no cumbersome procedure involved to go through the verification and approval process. Also, with the kind of aggressive and unfriendly behaviours banks have displayed when it comes to loan repayment, we prefer borrowing from our trusted contacts like friends, family, and co-workers. This is because we can get much more flexibility in loan repayment, and they understand our needs and challenges better than financial institutions.
But how does one draw the line when it comes to lending to friends and family? Since there’s no paperwork involved, the situation can quickly turn unpleasant if the borrower doesn’t repay on time. This is where SaveIN comes in.
Fintech start-up SaveIN
SaveIN is a Fintech start-up in the personal loans market. Headquartered in Gurugram, the company targets the B2B (business-to-business) and B2C (business to customer) sectors. Founded in 2020, they have an eponymous online social finance platform. SaveIN also recently raised an undisclosed amount in a pre-seed funding round from angel investors and industry veterans.
SaveIN’s Social Finance Platform
Their social finance platform digitises informal, social, and relationship-based loans. It’s a peer-to-peer marketplace and there’s also a SaveIN mobile app. The platform institutionalises borrowing and money lending arrangements between friends and family by facilitating discovery, matchmaking, record keeping, and digital payments of such transactions.
Patent received for their platform
The company’s social finance technological innovation has recently received a patent for a period of 20 years. SaveIN is one among the league of fintech start-ups in India that obtain patents for their technology.
Positively impacting the financial health of Indians
SaveIN is positively impacting the financial health of Indians by leveraging their own trusted network and providing access to need-based and contextual financial products. Since about 77 per cent of urban Indian households reach out to family, friends, and acquaintances in times of need, SaveIN is capitalising on this market.
The social finance sector in India
Impact of the Patent
The fintech sector is headed in the right direction towards positive change. Start-ups like SaveIN are taking the route of patents at a time when big tech companies are entering niche segments in India’s personal finance market.
Growth strategy
SaveIN’s growth strategy is to raise more capital and is already in discussions with stakeholders across banking, consulting, block-chain, credit bureau and fintech sectors. By raising more capital in further funding rounds, SaveIN will expand its market reach, accelerate its product development, and strengthen its in-house team. It plans to reach over 5 lakh users by the end of the current financial year. They also plan to offer a hyper-personalised suite of products and services in the retail personal finance domain.
Purpose, implementation and success of the platform
The purpose of the platform is to eventually enable the migration of millions of social lending transactions from the cash economy to a formal economy. The platform is implemented right amidst customers’ lending/borrowing social circle or personal contacts. It tracks users’ lending/borrowing activities. The platform eliminates the grey area in loan repayment among friends by making clear terms for each loan in customers’ social circle.
SaveIN witnessed 45-50 thousand users join the app in the first few months of launch. Their early adopters shared enthusiastic responses. Financially savvy users were onboarded as lenders on SaveIN. The company has seen hyperbolic growth within a few months since its launch.
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The platform institutionalises borrowing and money lending arrangements between friends and family by facilitating discovery, matchmaking, record keeping, and digital payments of such transactions.
What’s in it for me?
The neo-banking sector in fintech has been booming. Social credit and financing services is a part of the neo-banking domain that has remained unaddressed. Start-ups venturing into this sector have a vast market opportunity awaiting them since a large segment of the general public does not have easy access to formal credit. Social finance is a largely untapped and unorganised market. SaveIN is currently India’s very first social financing platform. There is a lot of space for more start-ups to venture into this sector to give them competition and to disrupt the market with innovations.
Social borrowing and lending transactions for short term-loans is a very large market . This market is growing steadily and has huge potential in growing economies like India where trust factor among close-knit relations is more important for availing loans compared to approaching a bank or financial institution. The Challenger bank sector is seeing a lot of activity with more firms emerging. Since social finance is still at the very fundamental stage, start-ups aspiring to venture into this market can follow in SaveIN’s wake.
