Full Financial Ecosystem Within One App
After working over two decades in the finance sector, Kumar Binit, CEO and Co-founder, airpay money, realized something was lagging in the approach of an average Indian towards financial planning. “When I started my career, although I was working in a bank, I didn’t exactly know how impactful and necessary the management of my personal financial health would be for my life. The issue that I had continues to exist for many, as a large section of our well-educated population remains clueless in figuring out how to go about investing, ” he adds. Propelled by this idea, Binit, along with his co-founders, started the development of airpay money in December 2020.
What airpay money does is help, guide, and advice the app users about their financial health irrespective of what stage of career they are at and their financial status. These recommendations and guidance are based on data-driven algorithms which help them recommend actions to users. “We don’t force users to take our choice, just give recommendations based on their risk investments, portfolio assessments, and financial stability of the user. Further, the app is free to use,” Binit explains.
Although there are many apps in the App Store which help you in investments in specific markets, there isn’t any which combines all the sub-sectors of the fintech industry and all the financial products on one platform. “Fintech industry can be divided into four sub-sectors: Insurance tech- which concerns with insurance-related investments, wealth tech- which is subjected to Mutual funds, Lending tech- for Loans, and digital payment services. In airpay money, all these sub-sectors are combined and presented to the user in one app,” Binit explains.
While Binit’s airpay money offers a lucrative solution to many, it competes against the financial advisors and consultants already set up in the market. Explaining how airpay money competes with the traditional route a person might take while thinking of investing, he explains that airpay money’s free consultation based on an AI assessment of the user gives them the edge. “Although financial consultants hold a dominant position in the market, few can afford that. What do these people do? For most, they basically trust their instincts or advice from trusted ones. When things turn south, they blame the people who made the advice.
That’s where we come into the picture,” he details. The app was launched in 2022, as it took airpay money’s team up to 11 months to develop all the features of the app. Binit claims that the company started generating revenue from Day one. Their business model is based on commissions on investments made by users. “We have partnered with banks and other financial institutions. These partners get customers based on our advice and recommendations. We get commissions based on their investments with our partners,” he discusses.
Moving forth, the app will see additions of services like National Pension Scheme, fixed deposits, cryptocurrencies, motor, health and life insurance, and corporate bonds, within this year. Their long-term aim is to create an ecosystem where airpay money could cater to all of their banks and financial partners by providing them digital services so that their business grows along with the services that they are already providing to our users.“We want to create a full financial ecosystem within the app itself,” Binit explains. The company is planning to hit the market for pre-seed and seed funding in July 2022.
