In his 20+ years of leadership experience, Rahul has built multi-billion dollar product lines & managed large product/engineering teams across Amazon, PayPal & American Express. He has also been involved with successful startups in US & India. Rahul holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, MS in Engineering from Carnegie Mellon, & a BTech degree from IIT Delhi.
The impact of the global pandemic is most conspicuous in the finance sector. Due to the worldwide ban on social interaction and physical contact, it is almost impossible for many to ensure their financial goals, might it be a business or an individual. Hence, the situation calls for innovations to somehow defuse the problems that occur and hamper fintech players to an incapacitating extent.
That said, while there are a good number of solutions with high practicability quotient, elucidated below are two solutions that yield the best results.
Digital fulfilment – the alternative to mainstream B2C physical interaction
The COVID-19 lockdown has prevented the continuation of normal business functions, making it impossible for lenders to carry out routine loan fulfilment processes that entail KYC documentation, loan agreement, and contact verification. Against this backdrop, InCred has emerged as a market leader by ushering in proprietary technologies to streamline digital KYC, digital field investigation, repayment setup and agreement signing, which are typically processed in a physical environment with participation from both transacting parties.
With these digital innovations in place, it is possible to bypass the need for a face to face interaction. Now, the loan application and processing are independent of physical touchpoints as a complete procedural revolution is achieved with the end-to-end contactless digital process.
Easy EMI for borrowers
The economy has taken a hard hit due to the lockdown following the onset of COVID-19. Several businesses are on the brink of cessation, resulting in either loss of job or reduction of pay across several sectors. This stalemate has drastically affected borrowers’ abilities to commit to loan repayments, thereby making EMI obligations virtually impossible to service.
Because of such plight that befalls borrowers, InCred has launched a relatively simplified EMI product, which entails a moratorium period of 12 months. In this scheme, borrowers are obliged to pay only the interest component of payments for one year, after which regular EMI payments resume. As things stand, this repayment option is the only borrower-oriented approach that can serve the interests of both parties involved. Lenders continue to streamline repayments while, at the same time, customers enjoy and make use of a more borrower-friendly repayment option. Another notable aspect of the program is that the transition from regular loan to the revised EMI is done digitally, and it is completely contactless.
Conclusion
As things stand, a digital solution is the only practicable model to meet consumers’ needs who are physically restricted in the COVID era. With this digital approach, it is possible to take on-board new customers, get payments, and process loans without the need for face-to-face interaction in a physical environment. The urgent need for digital solutions is such that there is a looming possibility of consumers opting for financial institutions that deliver services that customers can avail without leaving their homes.
For the last several years, there has been a trend to adopt digital technologies to reform the traditional banking system, which revolves around branches and clients’ physical identification. Now the pandemic has made that trend impossible to ignore.