ZestMoney is a technology company founded in mid 2015 by Lizzie Chapman (CEO), Priya Sharma (CFO) and Ashish Anantharaman (CTO).
The startup has created India's first
cardless EMI for online shopping.The platform allows for instant account opening and real time approval as well as digital repayments.The company integrates with online portals to enable customers to set up a flexible EMI at the checkout, real time.
ZestMoney customers are empowered to afford the things they need today, and spread the cost over up to 12 months.
By partnering with ZestMoney, e-commerce companies can convert more customers, reduce cart abandonment, increase average order size and reduce cash collection cycles.
Chitrakshi Suneja Interacts With Lizzie Chapman, CEO, ZestMoney and Spoke to Her
Idea GenerationWith growing income levels and the burgeoning middle-class, we are seeing unprecedented levels of consumerism in India. Apart from vacationing at international destinations, dining at fancy restaurants or owning new high end vehicles, demand for the latest premium electronic and lifestyle products have risen sharply. People are buying more and there a huge upsurge in online shopping.
The ZestMoney founding team has almost 30 years combined experience in digital lending from around the world. For many years, we have been obsessed with the idea of developing a fully automated digital lending platform in India for India. We spent some time thinking through different models and studying digital customers and their behaviour. We realised that many young people in India did not want to take out a credit card, this was not the solution for this market. We set up ZestMoney with an aim to revolutionize the online payment experience with instant credit and probably disrupt the credit card market.
Special Features 1. ZestMoney acts as a third-party payment provider for eCommerce sites, wherein they can provide their customers with digital EMI /virtual credit card option.
2. Because of our fully automated technology platform, we enable their customers to take out small affordable loans - as little as Rs. 5000.
3. ZestMoney provides the option of an upfront settlement, zero customer credit risk and full customer service to customers.
4. The customer notices Zest EMI pricing on product pages, prompting conversion.
5. ZestMoney helps customers split a purchase into flexible monthly EMIs makes them feel good about a bigger basket. Customers are more likely to “upsize” their purchase when ZestMoney financing is available.
6. Enabling instant checkout financing to customers who may not have access to traditional credit card EMI. ZestMoney EMI appeals to a younger crowd who don’t want to use their credit card or avail of a personal loan.
7. The company enables immediate settlement to the merchant and removes fraud and credit risk. ZestMoney handles all ongoing communication with the customer, collections and servicing.
Challenges FacedThere are many challenging parts to this business! As we work in financial services space, security and robustness of our platform is very critical. We have also had to create and constantly keep updating a very robust anti-fraud mechanisms.
Differentiation FactorsWe create completely customised solutions for any eCommerce or digital partner. Our technology platform improves the customer experience and turnaround time significantly.
There are no other start-ups today in India who are focusing on completely automating the entire consumer lending experience. Any in a similar space are relying on a lot of manual intervention which is hard to scale and affects the customer experience.
Monetization & Traction DetailsWe earn a portion of the fees the customers pay to avail credit. We also earn a fee from our e-commerce partners for providing financing services to their customers.
We have helped 10's of thousands of customers today via our 12 partner merchants. We are growing very fast and expect to have served hundreds of thousands of customers by the end of the year.
Market Size & OpportunityThe market size is enormous. In India today, less than 10m people have credit cards, whilst up to 100m people are shopping online already. India is a fast growing internet market and we expect the number of people coming online to continue to rapidly expand, yet the credit options available to them to remain very limited.
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This is Chitrakshi Suneja currently pursuing graduation and diploma in journalism and mass communication. She is crazy about Writing stuff on Startups, Entrepreneurs and reading as well.
