[Startup Interview] Rajat Dayal, CEO, Yabx, India

[Startup Interview] Rajat Dayal, CEO, Yabx, India

Published: 07-07-2020 11:57:00 | By: Bob Koigi | hits: 6683 | Tags:

Yabx targets the unbanked population in the emerging markets of Africa, Asia, and Latin America by leveraging the digital footprints of an individual and providing tailor-made financial services. The startup’s founder and CEO Rajat Dayal explains.

Introduce your company

Yabx was founded in 2018 with a vision to simplify financial access to the unbanked population in the emerging markets of Africa, Asia, and Latin America, using the mobile phone device. The Company has an unparalleled edge to provide solutions that help achieve its core purpose of financial inclusion.

Yabx, through its partnerships with leading Mobile operators, digital wallet providers, online payment gateways and PoS Aggregators enables Financial Service Providers (FSPs) to underwrite and service these new-to-credit segments using proprietary AI and ML algorithms on massive amounts of alternate data and helps them create a profitable portfolio.

Yabx's mission is to create world-class innovative products that help improve the lives of people who do not have access to regular financial services by leveraging the digital footprints of an individual and providing tailor-made financial services.

Our team is led by industry experts and entrepreneurs who have a global experience in managing telecom operators and mobile wallet providers, coupled with strong capabilities in behavioural analytics and risk management.

Who are the founders and what are their professional backgrounds?

The startup was started by Rajat Dayal who is also the CEO.

Yabx is led by a team with a strong background in data analytics and mobile financial services. Most of the key people have over years of industry experience in building platforms to offer financial services to the underbanked/unbanked.

Rajat Dayal is the CEO of Yabx since January 2018 where he has been driving business development through his strong personal network across Telecom and Banking.

Before Yabx, he has been with Comviva Technologies for over 7 years where he held leadership roles in Product and Partnerships. He was the Vice President and Head of APAC region where he lead the business across 17 countries in South and South East Asia.

In the past, he was one of the first employees of ElectrifAi (formerly Opera Solutions) in New York where he worked on predictive analytics as a service, and created a hosted, cloud-based systems for specific business problems, including consumer behavioural analysis and portfolio growth.

Rajat is an MBA from INSEAD in France.

Who are the owners of the company?

The company is owned by Comviva Technologies Ltd who are also the financiers.

Yabx is headquartered in Netherlands (The Hague), and has offices in India (Gurgaon, Bangalore).

Why did you start Yabx? What opportunities did you see?

There has been an unprecedented growth in digital payments over the last 10 years, enabling large segment of people to make digital transactions. However; majority of people lack access to credit and additional banking products that are considered critical for true financial inclusion.

There is a huge credit gap that exists in emerging markets; close to 1.7 billion adults remain unbanked. 65 Million SMEs in emerging markets face an estimated credit gap of $ 5.2 trillion. There is an opportunity to bridge the credit gap by using mobile phone to deliver access to financial services.

What problem or problems does Yabx solve?

We connect the underserved new to credit segments to the Financial Service Providers and digitize the loan process management like acquisition, on-boarding, underwriting, collections. We also do the Risk & Portfolio management for FSPs.

What gives Yabx the competitive edge?

We have extensive experience in risk management. We provide best in industry default rates on alternate data segment. We create Ecosystem with alternate data partnerships. We provide end-to-end delivery at the most competitive cost structures as we enable fulfillment of digital lending solutions.

Who are your customers?

We work with Telecom operators, Banks and Financial Institutions across the globe. The Telecom operators can leverage Yabx data & distribution network to deliver innovative financial products to customers leading to enhance experience, reduced churn and increased revenue.

Banks & MFIs can discover new customer segments digitally and enhance credit profiling of existing customers using alternate data resulting in reduced customer acquisition cost, improved portfolio yields and offering high velocity high volume financial products. We also offer alternate data-based credit solutions to eligible customers resulting in enhanced revenue per customer and improved loyalty.

What are the dynamics that have shaped the financial services sector?

The lending industry is witnessing a transformation. The focus has shifted to digitization; overcoming the pain points in the traditional lending process through digitization and moving to a faster and better customer experience.

Technology-driven alternative lenders are disrupting the traditional lending value chain by reducing the cost of delivering Financial services and engaging in both product and process innovation to improve customer experience and operational efficiency.

Alternative lending is redefining the lending model across the value chain and delivering credit to the underserved customers and SMEs through:

Alternate credit scoring: Use of advanced AI and ML algorithms to assess credit worthiness and unique behavioural patterns which act as a surrogate for the person's intent & ability to pay. It also optimises customer acquisition process, portfolio monitoring & advanced collections.

Advancement in Loan servicing: Digital acquisition, Digital on-boarding (eKYC), Loan fulfilment, collections

Partnerships: Partnerships between FIs and Fintechs to deliver the services; alternate data partnerships.

Differentiated Products: Products tailor made for the needs of the new to credit segment (retail as well as SME)

What is your growth strategy?

We are working with Telcos and customer networks to monetize their payment infrastructure by providing financial services using their reach to the customers.

In which markets are you looking to establish your presence?

Our mission is to create world-class innovative products that help improve the lives of people who do not have access to regular financial services by leveraging the digital footprints of an individual and providing tailor-made financial services.We are looking to establish our presence in Africa, SEA, Middle-East and South America

What are your plans for the coming 12 months?

We have a healthy funnel to deliver in the next 12 months. The team is trying to replicate its first few success across other customers who have released the orders to us.

www.yabx.co

 

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