Exclusive Interview with Akshay Mehrotra, Co-Founder and CEO, EarlySalary

The emergence of the fintech industry has given rise to the utmost use of technology to improve the financial services of consumers across the world. It automates the traditional processes that are cost-efficient as well as less time-consuming in this fast-paced life. It has enhanced the idea of digital India through multiple industries by building customized wallet share experiences with the customers. Digital transformation and the major disruptive technologies have helped the countries to adopt fintech efficiently and effectively in these recent years.

Here is an exclusive interview with Akshay Mehrotra, Co-Founder, and CEO of EarlySalary who elaborates the distinctive functions and features of his EarlySalary platform that help the working professionals in India with the easy line of credit.

1. Kindly brief us about the company, its specialization, and the services that your company offers.

A. EarlySalary is India's largest consumer lending application for salaried individuals that helps them with an easy line of credit, instant cash loans, personal loans, salary advances, or purchase products with affordability and EMIs. EarlySalary has become the preferred line of credit and introduced a Credit Suite Offering to suit the needs of every consumer including purchase finance across categories like shopping, travel, medical emergencies, or education. We have a product today for every need of consumers and our risk controls are holding well. We have introduced our new business unit for focusing on building affordability with BNPL and also started our card business to improve acceptance and build wallet share with the consumer.

2. With what mission and objectives, the company was set up? In short, tell us about your journey since the inception of the company?

A. Democratizing credit was the motto when we started off with EarlySalary; it was the first time five years back where an instant salary advance product was introduced in India and a new way was found where a young working professional could borrow on a mobile app. We followed three core principles that hold true even today— the ability to borrow without justifying why, the ability to pay back anytime and only pay for the amount and days borrowed for, and the true format digital automated journey. Today we have matured to offer a holistic product under the credit suite umbrella from salary advances to instant personal loans, from buy-now-pay-later to digital cards for payments. We have disbursed nearly half a billion (Rs.4000 Cr) worth of loans and became a preferred lending product to every young working Indian; we not only have built the highest-rated lending apps in the country but also got acceptance from nearly 800+ partner corporates to introduce financial wellness to employees across the country and we are now working with merchants across categories to build zero-cost EMI offers to customer bases.

3. Brief us about your role and contributions to the company and the industry.

A. I have a total of 17 years of work experience and started my career with large conglomerates across multi-industry domains such as retail, consumer services, banking, e-commerce, and insurance. I began my career at ­­­­­­­­Bajaj Allianz as a management trainee quickly rose to the role of Head of Marketing, the youngest in the industry, and decided to become a part of unicorn start-up, PolicyBazaar.com as the CMO. Thereafter, moved as the CMO for India's largest retailer Future Retail (Big Bazaar), and was awarded as 'Most Talented CMO of the Year' award in 2013-2014 by CMO Asia before taking the plunge as an entrepreneur and building EarlySalary, and in 2020 won the BW Business World 40 under 40 in the country also. I hold a Master's Degree in Business Administration from Symbiosis Institute of Management Studies, Pune. Owing to my extensive hands-on experience, I am often invited as a guest speaker by various industry forums to share my valuable experiences and perspectives.

4. Please brief us about the products/services/solutions you provide to your customers and how do they get value out of it.

A. EarlySalary is India's largest consumer lending application that helps young working professionals to avail easy salary advances or instant cash loans. We have disbursed 1.8 million loans to salaried professionals in the country in the past five years. Young professionals and job beginners experience month-end cash crunch and due to the lack of credit-score knowledge, they are also unable to borrow money from the traditional credit facilities available. EarlySalary helps them with an easy line of credit, instant cash loans, salary advances, long-term loans, education loans, interest-free EMIs for shopping and travel as well as 'Buy Now Pay Later Transactions' and 'Digital Card Payments'. Expanding its customer base, it has also integrated into any company's HR systems to help the entry-level and blue-collar employees borrow instantly. We at EarlySalary, aim to provide a one-stop credit solution that helps its customers to achieve financial support during emergencies and upgrade their lifestyles. Cumulatively, we have disbursed Rs. 3,500, helping customers get credit to have a better life each day, sustain a better lifestyle, or improve their future by paying for better skill up-gradation.

5. How do you see the company and the industry in the future ahead?

A. We want to build a larger organization, stand tall in the mind and heart of every customer with a product for every credit need. We are a profitable start-up and want to build a large financial model. Our current growth focus is based on three pillars— have all products to help us grow with the customer from cash to credit to cards, increase our customer acquisition by five times and build doubling of our size every six months. We want to make sure EarlySalary is a loved brand, a product offering that everyone can access. Currently, we want to build a large AUM base and believe this year we can grow our AUM by five times.

6. Please share some major achievements of EarlySalary under your leadership.

A. EarlySalary is India's consumer fintech enabling access credit to underserved consumers and young India. It is a lead tech-enabled business and a business generating cash at the enterprise level, proven unit economics at scale with lower NPA. EarlySalary is on a path for high scalable growth with a major focus on products that aims to provide easy access to credit and cater to needs of the people through personal loans, salary advance, 'Buy Now Pay Later', salary card.

In 2016 EarlySalary started with the instant loan and by 2021 EarlySalary has positioned itself as a market leader space of instant loans, salary advances, digital cards and now building a formattable 'Buy Now Pay Layer' business across, EdTech, healthcare, consumer tech insurance. Since inception, we have reached to highest customer retention rate which provides seamless customer experience across all the products and partnerships. We are the leading online consumer lender with 1.8 million loan disbursal, 500000+ monthly actives users, and nearly Rs.150 monthly disbursals.