Not many of us are, at any given point in time, aware of what our credit scores and even fewer of us track and record our credit reports even though these are publicly available data. However, we are quite unceremoniously acquainted with this important financial status when we try to apply for loans and credit cards. For many of us, it is shocking to find out that our credit scores unqualify us for credit and that this is something we could have quite easily managed if only we knew how.
This is where CreditSeva steps in with their innovative tools which enable simple people like us to know our credit scores, track them and communicate with banks with credit agencies more easily. Satya Vishnubhotla of CreditSeva spoke to NetworkedIndia’s Chrisanta Dias and promises that his team is committed to being your financial friend by helping you manage your credit in a very simplified manner which doesn’t require you to have any fancy accountancy skills.
Chrisanta Dias (CD): Your tagline is ‘Managing Credit Simplified’. For many people, credit and simple are completely dichotomous. How does Credit Seva marry the two harmoniously?
Satya Vishnubhotla (SV): At Creditseva we are motivated by our vision to ‘Innovate for Simplicity’. We are constantly driven by the pain in the user experience when taking complex financial decisions. Our proprietary algorithm does the job or understanding and analyzing the consumers credit report and score and tell him what is going wrong and how he can improve the situation. On top of this our integrated workflows help them to connect online with the banks and credit bureaus to execute various transactions.
CD: Outline the ‘innovative tools’ CreditSeva makes available to users. How are they helpful and are they platform agnostic?
SV: Creditseva application has built in tools like:
Rectification tool: Enable users to rectify errors in the credit reports
Credit Monitor: Monitor credit report and score periodically and alert on discrepancies identified
Credit Alert: To set periodical alerts on open credit accounts and personal financial transactions
Doc Vault: To auto save and retrieve all the transactional documentation relating to credit cards & loans
Score Driver: Tool which helps understand the composition of various factors behind his personal credit score and compare with standards
Score Simulator (beta): Helps consumers to simulate credit score on taking various financial decisions viz. closing a loan, taking a new credit card etc.
Creditseva application is a responsive web app and we are launching the android & iOS app in the coming weeks.
CD: Tell us the story of CreditSeva and how it came to be.
SV: This was in late 2011 when I saw the pain of a consumer who could not get an education loan for his daughter who got selected in IIM(C) to pursue management studies, just because his credit score is not good. It was a surprise at that time when there was no professional help around to solve this issue. Neither the bank manager nor a financial consultant can help to understand what went wrong with a credit report and what was this credit score all about. This was when we started our venture with our initial discussions happening in CCD at Hyderabad!
Launched in 2012, Kalyan and I worked with a small team in the first 24 months helping more than 10,000 consumers to understand & improve their credit profile. We got first hand experience in understanding consumer problem and built in proprietary know-how on how credit score is calculated and what can be done to improve the same within the existing legal and regulatory framework. After talking to several stakeholders like investors, consumers and credit bureaus we stopped working with consumers across the counter and shut down our consulting services to scale this business digitally by building an online application for consumer credit analytics for the first time in Asia!
Today Creditseva.com is a Singapore headquartered FinTech company with a development & support centre in Hyderabad. It is one of Asia’s first consumer credit analytics tools and product marketplaces helping consumers build and manage good credit profile.
50,000+ users with 100% m-o-m growth
Integrated with 6 banks in India and partnership with 1 credit bureau
Seed funded by Singapore government backed fund (IIPL) and industry executives from
Featured in several times in international media and selected into Startupbootcamp FinTech and NASSCOM’s 10k startup initiative
Run by a strong team of technologists, CAs & IIM grads having 25+ years of collective experience in working with MNCs and Big4 Consulting Firms
CD: Who are the core team members?
SV: Gowri Shankar, Technology; Pankaj Thyadi, Growth; Kalyan Varma, Operations; Satya Vishnubhotla, Business Development
CD: Does CreditSeva’s tools provide help for the entire spectrum of credit, from loans to credit cards as well for the corporate and individual consumer?
SV: Yes, Creditseva helps consumers to manage their entire credit portfolio from all types of loans and credit cards. Creditseva serves only individuals but not corporates.
CD: Do you see CreditSeva being used by consumers from tier III towns as well as villages that are being connected by internet?
SV: Yes, we see lot of growth coming from Tier II towns in India and we are working on building last mile connectivity for the credit transactions happening from these places.
CD: What has been the user response since you started? What are the challenges you have faced and how have they helped your company grow?
SV: We saw a tremendous growth in the user time spent on creditseva app since we launched. The major challenge is the consumer awareness about credit report /score and how they can execute a transaction. This made us work towards making things easier to the consumer and bring simplicity in the transactions.
CD: You were a part of the GenNext Hub Incubator. What was the experience like and what were your takeaways?
SV: GIH team is extremely helpful and did a great job in bringing all the stakeholders together on to a single platform and support the right startups. This is where we got introduced to few banks and financial institutions, got support from the senior executives within the industry which helped us grow faster.
CD: How do you see CreditSeva evolving in the future?
SV: Timely credit at the right cost is not an easy job! We are passionate about solving this problem with data.