Amit Kumar: Leveraging over a Decade's Experience to Offer Seamless Financial Solutions for All
Amit Kumar
Founder & CEO
One such industry expert who is setting new benchmarks in the finance industry is Amit Kumar, Founder & CEO, Dhanrashi Fintech. An IIM Ahmedabad alumnus, Amit holds 15 years of corporate experience where he has handled leadership roles at regional and national levels in companies like Coca Cola India, JK, Hindware and Ujjivan. With Dhanrashi Fintech as his brainchild, Amit believes that it will emerge as an important driverof Innovation and growth in microfinance.
Recently engaging in a one-on-one interaction with CEO Insights magazine, Amit shared his insights on the budding MFI and Fintech industry,and how Dhanrashi Fintech is contributing to this segment and how he is leveraging his expertise to contribute towards the growth. Below are the snippets from the same.
Tell us about the unique experiences that you had come across at IIM Ahmedabad. What did you learn from the campus other than academics?
Intelligence plus character, that is the goal of true education and I believe I am blessed that I got my education done from IIM A.While IIM A is prestigious institute in itself, the best part of college is the way education is imparted and knowledge is been shared. I appreciate the practical approach, real life case studies, openness to express thoughts, share experience, learn from others experience, these
are few of the unique things which are a part of the overall approach of education at IIM A. The batch has professionals, young entrepreneurs from different sectors and champion of various domains.
Throw some light on your professional journey so far. What is it that inspired you to enter the finance domain?
In my total one and half plus decade’s experience, I have been very fortunate to experience FMCG, Retail, Power sector and financial services, and I had dedicated most of my time to the finance sector. While working on numerous assignments for the finance sector, I realized that the need of cash flow is not only restricted to small, medium or large enterprises, in fact the need is same even at the micro enterprise level which is being catered by the local money lenders. Even though the credit facility is available, the TAT is so high owing to which either they do not avail it or they find it less efficient tool to address instant cash need. Taking note of this gap, I was inspired to develop a tech-enabled platform offering customized products to meet these micro enterprise cash flow or working capital needs.
Define Dhanrashi Fintech as an organization and its current position in the industry?
Today, at a time when everything is going digital, Dhanrashi Fintech is the need of the hour. We vest our focus on serving the unserved and underserved population who are not privilege to have access to full stack of banking and financial services. With these masses stuck with the local money lenders, depriving them of the inclusive financial services, we at Dhanrashi Fintech have come to their aid. We are committed to providing full range of financial services to micro entrepreneur in tier-III or tier-IV cities and to start with we are currently doing micro enterprise cash loans, offering insurance, facilitating digital payments and much more to contribute our bit to financial inclusion.
Owing to your 10+years of experience in the finance sector, how has your path to success been so far? What would you consider as your success mantra?
In my journey of over a decade, one of the biggest learning that I have gained so far is to keep your business customer centric and not product centric or tech centric. There is a history of proven busi
I Was Insipired To Devlop A Tech Enabled Platform Offering Customized Products To Meet These Micro Enterprise Cash Flow Or Working Capital Needs
Throw some light on your professional journey so far. What is it that inspired you to enter the finance domain?
In my total one and half plus decade’s experience, I have been very fortunate to experience FMCG, Retail, Power sector and financial services, and I had dedicated most of my time to the finance sector. While working on numerous assignments for the finance sector, I realized that the need of cash flow is not only restricted to small, medium or large enterprises, in fact the need is same even at the micro enterprise level which is being catered by the local money lenders. Even though the credit facility is available, the TAT is so high owing to which either they do not avail it or they find it less efficient tool to address instant cash need. Taking note of this gap, I was inspired to develop a tech-enabled platform offering customized products to meet these micro enterprise cash flow or working capital needs.
Define Dhanrashi Fintech as an organization and its current position in the industry?
Today, at a time when everything is going digital, Dhanrashi Fintech is the need of the hour. We vest our focus on serving the unserved and underserved population who are not privilege to have access to full stack of banking and financial services. With these masses stuck with the local money lenders, depriving them of the inclusive financial services, we at Dhanrashi Fintech have come to their aid. We are committed to providing full range of financial services to micro entrepreneur in tier-III or tier-IV cities and to start with we are currently doing micro enterprise cash loans, offering insurance, facilitating digital payments and much more to contribute our bit to financial inclusion.
Owing to your 10+years of experience in the finance sector, how has your path to success been so far? What would you consider as your success mantra?
In my journey of over a decade, one of the biggest learning that I have gained so far is to keep your business customer centric and not product centric or tech centric. There is a history of proven busi
ness model that has done well while keeping the best interest of customer in mind. The best way to thrive in a business is to know your customer in an out and the market. Be adaptable to change, and since we are from finance sector, we equally focus on financial literacy. Always be in gratitude of 2C's, without these you don't have a business-Customers & Cash.
Let’s uncomplicate, no matter whether it is the solution or the situation, we have n number of solution available for a single set of problem, but most take a complicated approach to address the problem, due to which either the penetration to root cause is left out or the solution becomes theoretical within the board rooms presentations. Every problem irrespective of degree of the problem has a simple solution to it. And most importantly, Empathy, it is an important core value that can complement the unlearning and relearning cycle in the entrepreneurial journey.
What technologies that you are adopting for Fin Tech & MFI paperless solutions? What are your focus areas for creating impact towards the future of your company?
At Dhanrashi, the approach towards tech is DIY, hence, we have an in house team lead by myself and we believe technology should not be barrier for the people whom we are serving, or who are less educated. The architecture of our mobile application is designed in a manner to assist rural customers for smooth onboarding and service experience. Our tech team keeps developing and testing unique ideas at all times which are not only customer centric but also assist client to use technology irrespective of their limited tech exposure. We believe technology should not be barrier for the people whom we are serving, who are less educated.
About future roadmap, we are in sync with todays need of driving Digital India initiatives. Dhanrashi Fintech is bound to evolve in the Digital Lending, with digital payment solution uniquely designed and developed for rural and semi urban market. We are also eyeing at a few strategic tie-ups to enhance our offerings to our existing user base. Dhanrashi’s socio-economy metric also helps in building social economical profiles of the borrowers.
What would be your advice to the budding entrepreneurs?
Today, the entrepreneurs are intelligent as well as smart. All I can say is, if you can put one extra purpose on elevating life situation of customers, employees, the needy one by giving them opportunity to work, promoting their business, good salaries or something likewise, it can help so much in contributing towards the positivity of our society.
Let’s uncomplicate, no matter whether it is the solution or the situation, we have n number of solution available for a single set of problem, but most take a complicated approach to address the problem, due to which either the penetration to root cause is left out or the solution becomes theoretical within the board rooms presentations. Every problem irrespective of degree of the problem has a simple solution to it. And most importantly, Empathy, it is an important core value that can complement the unlearning and relearning cycle in the entrepreneurial journey.
What technologies that you are adopting for Fin Tech & MFI paperless solutions? What are your focus areas for creating impact towards the future of your company?
At Dhanrashi, the approach towards tech is DIY, hence, we have an in house team lead by myself and we believe technology should not be barrier for the people whom we are serving, or who are less educated. The architecture of our mobile application is designed in a manner to assist rural customers for smooth onboarding and service experience. Our tech team keeps developing and testing unique ideas at all times which are not only customer centric but also assist client to use technology irrespective of their limited tech exposure. We believe technology should not be barrier for the people whom we are serving, who are less educated.
About future roadmap, we are in sync with todays need of driving Digital India initiatives. Dhanrashi Fintech is bound to evolve in the Digital Lending, with digital payment solution uniquely designed and developed for rural and semi urban market. We are also eyeing at a few strategic tie-ups to enhance our offerings to our existing user base. Dhanrashi’s socio-economy metric also helps in building social economical profiles of the borrowers.
What would be your advice to the budding entrepreneurs?
Today, the entrepreneurs are intelligent as well as smart. All I can say is, if you can put one extra purpose on elevating life situation of customers, employees, the needy one by giving them opportunity to work, promoting their business, good salaries or something likewise, it can help so much in contributing towards the positivity of our society.