INDIA, Gurugram, December 17, 2020: Chqbook, India's first neobank for small business owners like kiranas, merchants, chemists, and others running proprietorships, has recorded tremendous growth amid Covid-19 driven by phenomenal acceptance by small business owners, pan India. With one application received every 10 seconds, Chqbook’s financial control centre has seen a 9X growth in applications. With a vision to make India's 60 million small business owners financially fitter, Chqbook provides world-class financial services through its five key pillars: banking, lending, khata, group insurance, and a first of its kind rewards program.
Chqbook is unit economics-positive, and its YOY revenue witnessed 10X growth in FY' 19-20 compared to FY'18-19. It has crossed the half a million mark having doubled its customer base in H1 FY20-21. Today, Chqbook serves over 600,000 customers and processes applications from customers across 500 Indian cities.
Chqbook's full-stack financial platform features new-age technology to deliver superior customer experience. Powered by artificial intelligence and data analytics, the platform assesses a potential customer's eligibility and ensures their financial requirements are fulfilled speedily, with minimum documentation.
The company has received an overwhelming response from small business owners and now processes over 150,000 applications per month across its five pillars. The company is on track to achieving its plan of servicing over 1 million customers by the end of this financial year. Key growth numbers that support this phenomenal response are:
Chqbook's Current Account, which is powered by ICICI Bank, received over 17,000 new account applications since its launch.
Using Chqbook Khata, a free digital bookkeeping service, customers use the service daily to record customer credit transactions, collect payments by sending UPI links and to manage suppliers. Interestingly, Chqbook App has seen an average ticket size of ₹ 2,000 on UPI payments.
Chqbook saw a surge in lending applications through the pandemic. Over 60,000 applications were processed.
Over 85,000 Chqbook customers have secured their life, health, or shop through the members-only plans on the Chqbook App.
Chqbook offers an industry-first rewards program where a small business owner earns reward points on every transaction, which can be claimed against offers from over 30 brands. More than 300,000 rewards have been claimed so far.
Commenting on the growth, Vipul Sharma, Founder & CEO, Chqbook said, “Chqbook's financial control center has seen widespread adoption across the country and takes us one step closer to making India's 60 million small business owners financially fitter. We will continue to solve problems for the busy store-owner — the hardware store, the small restaurant, and millions of other mom-and-pop businesses across the country. Over the next few months, we will continue to scale customers across cities and towns in the country and reach over a million small business owners.”
About Chqbook.com
Chqbook.com, Gurugram and Bengaluru-based fintech start-up is India's first neobank for small business owners offering world-class financial services through its five pillars of banking, khata, lending, insurance, and rewards.
Founded in 2017 by Vipul Sharma, Rajat Kumar, Sachin Arora, and Mohit Goel, Chqbook's mission is to empower this massively underserved segment to help drive financial inclusion. It serves more than 600,000 customers across India's top 25 cities. It uses alternate data, working closely with credit bureaus, partners, and financial institutions to deliver tailor-made financial products and services to small business owners.
The company has raised funding from marquee investors including Aavishkaar Capital, Harsha Bhogle, Bharat Shyam, Ken Glass, Rohit Chanana, Bhupesh Kumar, Amit Manocha, Amit Singal, Nilesh Shrivastava, and Sakshi Vij.
Chqbook is also the winner of many prestigious awards like the Fintech Rocketship Award 2019 from the UK's Department of International Trade, Tech30 at YourStory TechSparks 2019, and 2018 SuperStartups Asia Awards.