The word ‘ instant or getting things instantly done within the comfort of a click in the past few years has bowled over people. Latching on to the characteristic to provide something instant and fast soon became the USP of many startups across business verticals that have challenged the archaic business processes of the biggies and have made consumers spoilt for choices. The processes have become instant be it purchasing food and medicines online to procuring raw materials say, for an auto spare parts business.
Apart from the growth of online shopping, India’s fintech ecosystem has grown enormously in the past five years. According to a joint report from FICCI and BCG, 67 percent of the more than 2100 FinTechs in India today were founded in the last five years.
With a myriad of fintech startups on the plate, users become overwhelmed with the abundance of information available on the internet while selecting the appropriate fintech product sufficing their needs.
Precisely, the ecosystem lacks a consolidated platform for accessing all the information about fintech applications on a single screen with benefits listed for the users. Realising a gap here, Harsh Sharma’s Delhi-based startup Tchyon is now looking to change this.
Tchyon : Aiming to offer financial services faster than the speed of light
Inspired by the nature of the hypothetical particle that always travels faster than the light, Harsh Sharma – an MBA graduate from the University of Rochester named his financial discovery platform- Tchyon. Standing true to its name, this venture aims to offer its users give access to the best financial services on its platform at a lightning speed.
While working as a credit analyst in Joust in the United States, Harsh handled the crucial function of writing underwriting models for businesses. While working there he realised the long trail of paperwork and documents that made it cumbersome for businesses and individuals to seek credit cards or open a bank account. Such archaic processes in the digital era are a major disappointment for the users to gain confidence with the financial product.
The drive to start his venture came into fruition during the pandemic when he moved to India and found himself in the middle of digitalising his father’s business.
In the process of digitalising the business, he witnessed that opening a bank account and setting up payment gateways would require to fill documents such as MoA ( Memorandum of Association), AoA ( Articles of Association), etc which seemed a daunting task. Harsh wanted to address this problem and thought that instant access to financial services digitally should be as easy as ordering food online just within the click of a button.
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According to a joint report from FICCI and BCG, 67 percent of the more than 2100 Fintechs in India today were founded in the last five years.
Recommending the best fintech applications to the user
In general, if we ask anyone about the last fintech application on their phone, it is likely that it must have been referred by a friend, social media platforms, relatives, or other acquaintances. Tchyon here wants to replicate the offline recommendation of fintech applications online and guide a user to help them understand and suggest the best financial product that matches their use cases. With the pros and cons of all financial products displayed on the platform, it creates transparency, aiding the user to make an informed decision.
The beauty of this platform lies in tailoring the onboarding process where the user will undergo a single KYC process to understand a user’s needs.
Let us say, for instance, the user wants to avail services of insurance and credit card only, Tchyon then suggests certain fintech platforms and services that allow the users to avail the services with a simple email id or mobile number through the platform.
It provides a plug-and-play model, where the user will undergo a quick verification process and can instantly set up a digital wallet or begin investing instantly in crypto trading platforms such as Coin DCX or online trading platforms like-5Paisa, Zerodha, etc.
Under one roof the platform has merchant partners for several needs of users such as crypto, neobank, cards, bonds, alternate investment, P2P lending, mutual funds, personal finance, stocks.
How the small businesses will benefit?
The digitisation of various functions in businesses especially finance has been brought to the forefront by the pandemic. Indian MSMEs are riddled with several challenges related to cash flows, setting payment gateways, payroll, and logistics but are not aware of solutions that can minimise these frictions in business operations. The business owners being alien to technology become overwhelmed with the information available with the simple google search.
Tchyon helps to diagnose the problems by asking a certain set of questions regarding the challenges faced in their routine business operations and suggesting the best products.
Collection- A curated collection of financial products
The purpose of the collection feature is to enable people instantly. Looking at the concerns mentioned by a business or any individual the platform’s ‘Collection’ feature will curate a basket of appropriate financial products and services that will effectively address their problems. Once convinced with the solutions provided the businesses decide to go ahead with a simple onboarding process of ‘ Click here ’, upload the necessary documents verified by Tchyon, and sent to the fintech merchant company that Tchyon has partnered with.
Let us say a logistics business is facing challenges with the digitisation of payments, the collection feature will develop a basket of payment gateway services such as-Razorpay or Paytm mentioning the necessary documentation required for easy onboarding process and usage.
Through the platform’s Onboarding-as-a-Service API users are instantly able to signup for the services, thereby helping merchant partners to convert prospects quickly to users and save sufficient time.
With the conventional approach, if to open a payment gateway, the users need to fill and submit bulky documents such as AoA and MoA which is cumbersome.
Upon sending the documents the businesses can begin improving the operations from the next day.
The revenue model
Tchyon does not charge from its users but charges a certain amount from its merchants. Moreover, the platform being a marketplace also earns revenues from advertising.
The road ahead for Tchyon
For the next couple of years, Harsh aims to create a myriad of financial offerings for its consumer by partnering with more fintech merchants. Next, it wants to help businesses to identify their problems to offer quick solutions to provide instant gratification. Third, it has plans to launch virtual accounts that could be used for investing in the stock market, cryptos, or any other asset class. Fourth, it plans to provide credit for both consumers and businesses.
Lastly, talking about India’s fintech landscape, Harsh is quite bullish about the sector picking up growth since India is a populous country with varied interests and unique demands, and to cater to them several fintech platforms are launching propositions that can benefit consumers in a great manner, just all it requires is a consolidated platform that helps them make an informed decision regarding the fintech platform suiting their needs and free Indians from the archaic documentation processes and ease the fintech adoption.
