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Source: Fi
Fi, the Bengaluru-based neo-bank aka online banking platform today announced that it has just crossed one million accounts, within just 8 months of it becoming available to users.
About thrice this number (1 million) have signed up on the app showing interest to use it.
The platform launched by former Google Pay founders Sujith Narayanan and Sumit Gwalani targets customers belonging to salaried millennials and working professionals segment. The company has recorded an average 15 transactions every month per user on Fi. This is significantly higher as compared to an industry average of 4-5 transactions. “We are seeing great engagement with a portfolio average of over 15 transactions per month, per user. These numbers, we believe, are rare and remarkable even by global standards” says Sumit Gwalani, co-founder at Fi.
Fi has recently raised $50 million funding round led by Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin’s B Capital, with participation from Falcon Edge Capital. Other investors for the company includes, Sequoia India, Ribbit Capital, Hillhouse Capital and angel investors like Kunal Shah founder and CEO of CRED.
Neobanks like Fi are focused towards driving financial inclusion. Traditional banks do not have the deep India penetration. There are many remote areas without a single bank branch. Because of this, a huge chunk of the population in India remains unbanked. “This is where neobanks can help” says Gwalani. “With the internet revolution that Jio brought, even the most remote areas in the country have access to smartphones and the internet”, added Gwalani. Since neobanks are fully digital and easy to use, they give this unbanked population a way to enter the financially inclusive circle.
In India, there has been a major investment boost to the fintech industry in the last year. Additionally, the 2022-23 Budget has also recognised the potential of this industry and was vocal about actively supporting it further in the future.
Fi has partnered with Federal Bank to issue an instant savings account, equipped with a debit card, in under 3 minutes. “The pace of our growth gives us the reassurance that we are comfortably placed not only within India but among global neo-banks as well”, added Sujith Narayanan, Co-founder and CEO, Fi.
Since the tenet of neobanks is providing convenience to its customers, the larger impact of this adoption would be a shift in the banking sector’s approach to business.
Features of the Fi app:
• Millennial ready: True to its motto to help digital-first millennials interact with their money, the mobile application is particularly designed to cater to working millennials. The interface of the application is modern and its flow is smooth-instantly making it a hit among the smart tech users.
• Customer-centric: It is a simple to use application which is user centric and cuts through the jargon and clutter, which is not particularly found in digital banking apps by some of the biggest banks in India.
• Easy On-boarding: What makes Fi further more promising is that it’s on boarding is completely digital and paperless. Any users can create an account with Federal Bank via Fi in a matter of minutes.
• Fit Rules: Fi guides its users to save and spend wisely. Users can set up ‘rules’ that govern your FD savings. So every time you make an order on Swiggy or Amazon, you can ask the app to deduct a certain amount from your saving balance and put in FD. This way, you also save money while you spend. The app also prepares a comprehensive expense report, unlocking insights and patterns about user’s spending habits.
• Fi-coins: Fi also offers rewards in the form of Fi-coins for certain activities such as paying for e-commerce shopping five times, saving more than Rs 1,000 in a month and other similar milestones. The coins can be redeemed on the app’s marketplace for buying coffees and other discount offers.
The app is available on both Google Play Store — where it has over a million downloads — and Apple App Store.
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