Learn more about a smart personal loan with Karthikeyan K of KreditBee in this interview

Traditional financial platforms are facing a lot of challenges these days regarding creating communication between customers and the finance sector. The aim of smart financial platforms is to resolve these issues by using technologies like jam stack with a serverless microservices modification. Along with BNPL card and personal SaaS solutions, KreditBee is such a smart personal loan platform. Analytics Insight has engaged in an exclusive interview with Karthikeyan K, Co-Founder & CTO of KreditBee.

• Kindly brief us about KreditBee, its specialization, and the services it offers

KreditBee is an Instant Personal Loan platform for self-employed and salaried professionals, where they can apply for a Personal Loan starting from ₹ 1,000 up to ₹ 2 Lakhs as per their requirement. We aim to become the first choice when it comes to quick and convenient credit products.

We have different categories of loan products catering to varied target segments, as follows:

• Flexi Personal Loans – Small loans ranging from ₹1,000 to ₹10,000 with short repayment tenures (62 days to 6 months). One requires a PAN Card and address proof to benefit from a flexible loan option
• Personal Loans for Salaried – Salary Loans start from ₹10,000 to ₹2 Lakhs with tenure ranging from 3 to 15 months. All you need is a PAN Card, address proof, and salary proof to apply for salaried loans
• Online Purchase Loans – A Buy Now, Pay Later EMI option. In such loans, one can avail E-vouchers from KreditBee which can be used to purchase items on partner platforms like Flipkart, Amazon, Myntra, Nykaa, MakeMyTrip & more
• PPLSE (Premium Personal Loan for Self-employed) aims to assist self-employed individuals to meet all their business expenses quickly and easily. They can avail the funds between Rs. 4,000 to Rs. ₹2 Lakhs in one go and repay it over flexible loan tenures

We recently launched the KreditBee Card, a virtual credit card that allows users to withdraw cash into their bank account or purchase anything online.

Further, we offer different value-added services, such as:

• Loan-linked Insurance – An insurance product that is linked to the short-term loans offered on the KreditBee platform, with coverage beyond the loan repayment
• Credit Score Report – A Free Experian Report for all Credit Users of KreditBee

• Is there a specific pain point KreditBee is trying to address? If yes, how?

The idea for a platform like KreditBee was conceived with the aim to extend credit to self-employed and salaried individuals. This relatively new-to-credit segment is underserved, if not unserved, by the traditional financial institutes. The non-service to these individuals is due to the inability of traditional financing setups (including banks and NBFCs) to appropriately understand their credit requirements and assess their repayment capabilities.

KreditBee addresses this credit gap by leveraging enhanced technology architecture. At KreditBee, we offer a wide range of credit products in varying ticket sizes and repayment tenures to suit all the unpredictable financial needs of our customers. This is made possible by our approach to utilize alternate lending and profound data points apart from salary and bureau scores in order to disburse credit to young professionals who are new to credit, and also to non-salaried gig workers including part-timers, freelancers, and self-employed. Our full-stack digital lending platform allows customers to get loans from their smartphones directly into their bank account at any given point of time with no paperwork or branch visits required. Further, the entire loan application process is online, right from eligibility check, application, disbursement, and repayment. This enables a seamless customer experience for the borrowers.

• When did you join KreditBee? What are your key roles and responsibilities as the CTO?

As one of the founding members of the company, I was involved in KreditBee's operations since March 2016, prior to its formation. My role as a CTO at KreditBee has been constantly evolving, as the product is going through various stages of its life cycle. In the inception phase, it involved ensuring the development of the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) version. At present, the team has grown to a larger unit with over 20 sub-teams, which has also brought changes in my responsibilities. My role now involves making sure that the team has the right contours, striking a balance between design/technology and timelines to bring business value faster, new products, new integrations, overall governance, performance improvements, overall strategy, and POC for new technologies, services, etc.

• Explain how you are leveraging AI/ ML for the gamification of the underwriting process?

AI/ML has a prominent role to play in our underwriting process. Our section known as Price Discovery provides multiple options to customers, to submit their details. The process involves a gamification element as it unlocks rewards such as reduced fees and more, as per the information provided by the customer.

With further customer interaction, the AI/ML technology stack updates the customer's intent score based on the actual information provided by the customer. Cumulatively, all of the AI technologies/ML models update over 15,000 variables for each customer. This allows us to conduct a comprehensive underwriting of the borrowers.

• What tech tools do you use?

At KreditBee, we utilize numerous technology tools as a part of multiple stacks. One of the more prominent ones is the customer-facing stack wherein, we use a jam stack with a serverless microservices modification. The two important languages utilized are React for our frontend and Go for backend operations on AWS Lambda. The tech architecture is further layered for security, authentication, permissions, among others. Also, we leverage different stacks internally, in the domains of data science, data engineering, business intelligence teams, etc. Fundamentally, we strive to use serverless or other managed services, so as to allow the core team to focus on bringing continuous business value.

• What is KreditBee's business roadmap like for 2022?

At present, KreditBee has a user base of more than 30 Million with over 5 million credit customers. We have disbursed over $2 billion worth of loans in the last three years. In late August, we launched KreditBee cards and as of now, are already issuing over 5,000 cards daily. By March 2022, we aim to issue over 250,000 cards every month. Further, we are in the process of launching BNPL (Buy-Now-Pay-Later) services. We also have a SaaS platform to provide API services to multiple fintech companies and brands, and we look to enhance its operationalization. Our diversification plans also involve venturing into digitally-enabled secured loans, home loans, and credit lines. With this, we intend to consolidate and saturate the market with the existing lending portfolio with the idea of full-stack digital lending.

• What is your Leadership Mantra?

I believe in Purpose-driven leadership. At KreditBee, we are striving towards building a one-stop financing solution for salaried and self-employed individuals, towards the country's financial inclusion imperative. In order to achieve this, collaboration and innovation lie at the very core. It is essential to understand the needs of the customer, especially in the Fintech industry. Considering the dynamic nature of the current economic landscape, we need to constantly evolve ourselves to be able to service customers with effective solutions, efficiently. Once the company's focus is aligned, the elements of individuals' learning, growth, and development follow naturally.