Headquartered in Pune,
EarlySalary is a Fintech Startup that uses new age technology for lending funds. The company aims to deliver a revolutionary new business model which is set to change the lending market in India.
EarlySalary was founded with a mission to offer consumers the convenience of availing loans at a short notice with minimum legal formalities involved. The service is available as a Mobile App that offers small bridge loans to working professional who are short on cash and need funds till their salary gets credited at the start of next month. Users can just download the mobile application and login using their Facebook account with some basic details and apply for a loan. Within minutes, the user will be notified whether his/her loan request has been approved or not. Once the documents are approved through the mobile app, the money gets transferred to the loan seekers account within minutes.
The startup was introduced on 23rd Feb 2016 and already has received 1 Lakh App downloads and loan requests.
About Founderso Akshay Mehrotra, Chief Executive Officer at EarlySalaryArmed with a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from Symbiosis Pune, Askhay Mehrotra is now spearheading his own Start-up venture EarlySalary along with two other partners. Prior to this, Akshay was associated with brands like Future Retail Ltd, PolicyBazaar.com, Big Bazaar and Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance Co. Ltd. An exemplary leader, Akshay brings with him a rich experience of 12 years in strategic planning and marketing. He has been conferred as one of the Most Talented CMO of the year award in 2013 – 2014 in the retail space, by CMO Asia.
o Ashish Goyal, Chief Finance Officer at EarlySalaryOne of the co-founder and The Chief Finance Officer of EarlySalary, Ashish Goyal leads the company’s finance department. He is a finance professional with over 14 years of experience spanning the entire gamut of finance including business finance, controllership, risk management and strategic initiatives. Ashish is a qualified Chartered Accountant with an All India Ranking of 37. He has also been conferred as ‘Most Astute Bond Fund Manager’ by Asset Magazine, Singapore in 2011. Prior to joining EarlySalary, he was associated with Bajaj Allianz for 14 years as the Chief Investment Officer.
Sujata Sangwan Interacts With Akshay Mehrotra, CEO, EarlySalary And Spoke To Him
How was EarlySalary started?Akshay Mehrotra, Co-Founder & CEO of EarlySalary.com .com, which is India’s first fully digitalized mobile app to get a quick loan for a short duration, got started to solve a very simple problem. One usually runs out of money on month ends and the last 10 days of every month get difficult. EarlySalary.com offers small bridge loans which are given to people within minutes to help them tide-over the cash crunch on month ends.
In Oct 2015, Akshay along with his close friends Ashish Goyal and decided to take a plunge with a broad based idea of a short term lending platform. Solutions to each of the problems came into place and he along with his friends were able to build a new age financial institution with great speed and in Feb, 2016 EarlySalary was launched on Google App Store. Today, EarlySalary.com is a Mobile App based lending platform which offers quick loans and relies on technology layers which allow short-term loans, between 7days and 30days. With two months EarlySalary.com already has 105000 app downloads already is successfully offering loans in Pune, Bangalore & Chennai and will soon expand operations in more towns.
Service Offered & USPEarlySalary.com gives out loans from Rs. 10,000 upto 1lac for a tenure of 7 to 30 days. Credit limit is subject to many variables but in-principle you can take-upto 50% of your salary as advance cash loan for 30 days.
FinTech is current the big buzz in the start-up space and many players are disrupting the traditional Banking space by offering both solving consumer pain points like payments, lending, financial inclusion or solving business issues in the Banking space including payment aggregation or risk analytics spaces.
EarlySalary differentiate itself in three ways from existing products and institutions:o EarlySalary is a short term loan product positioning of under 30 days is the key differentiator, while most banks and other financial institutions offer longer term tenure.
o Age basis and primary focus is credit bureau score for decisioning: at EarlySalary we are focus on younger working populations we want to give credit to young working population of India and use multiple decision systems including Social Media score carding part from credit bureau scores. We are one of the few financial institutions who focus on 21- 28years old while traditional institutions are vary of lending to young working populations.
o Life style loan: EarlySalary allows it users to have a lifestyle in its early career ages, its similarity to Salary/Cash advances which come companies’ offer to their employees but it’s not something offers from Financial Institutions.
o FinTech yet Financial Institutions: we are fully digitized platform but are an end to end Financial Institutions and are not just P2P platform. We acquire customers, we decision, we take the risk on our books, and we recover from customers.
FundingThe company has already received Seed funding from Ashok Agarwal of Transcorp Group of USD 1.5 million at the initial stage.
Monetization Model & Traction DetailsOur revenue model is primary interest on deployed capital and digital systems helps us reduce cost of operations, while in shorter tenure helps us revolve capital better. While other revenues include fees, charges on default etc. similar to other financial institutions.
Most importantly like a financial institution our core model is to borrow institutional debt at low rate and lend at higher rate and earn on the spread income. Currently, we are equity funded but as we grow our book Debt will be instrumental in our growth.
Future PlansWe are currently focusing on improving our business model and building volume. We have been investing in building acceptance and large tractions in the market. We are optimistic that in the next 24 months’ time, we can build a lending book size of 200-300 cr monthly, which will require funding in future.
Marketing PlansMost of our marketing is linked to company tie-up where we offer salary advance to companies’ employees and App store marketing. We are already live with 20+ large corporates where we offer salary advances to company employees in our operative markets. Moreover, at Google Play & Apple Store, our app is one of the top Finance Apps with over 100000+ downloads and growing at 1000+ a daily.
Challenges FacedCredit scoring is very difficult and judgement scorecard cannot go wrong without last amounts of like customer data and performance to benchmark against. We were very fortunate we approached both credit bureaus in India and data analytics companies in US to help us and we are able to overcome this huddle. In a risk on book business it’s important that we not only grow while controlling cost of acquiring low but at the same time keep our delinquency under control.
Market Size & Opportunity With internet penetration, technology in the financial space is catching up in India. Right from online shopping to online financial transactions, everything is gradually going digital now. The long and cumbersome process of getting loans from banks has been cut short with just few clicks made using smartphones.
Today, the Fintech startups have been successfully addressing the under-served micro- and small-business segments for their financial needs which are not met by banks. Fintech is indeed a complex ecosystem and but has been rapidly evolving. The overall potential for Fintech in India is very promising. It also largely depends on- governments, regulators, financial institutions, entrepreneurs, lenders, borrowers, market participants, investors and lending platforms to play a responsible role in being supportive in the development of this powerful business model.
Currently in India, the personal loan outstanding is close to Rs.135,000 cr, while credit card outstanding is Rs.3,750 cr. Today, only 15% of working young salaried professionals have an access to credit cards. Hence, this creates a huge potential for EarlySalary.com for tapping the remaining youth population of India looking for easy loans.
