Srikanth Nadhamuni on building Trustt; ClearTax’s playbook for GCC

These days it seems like fintech cannot avoid the spotlight.

The Reserve Bank of India has instructed card payment gateways Visa and Mastercard to suspend all business payment solution providers’ (BPSPs) transactions involving card-based commercial payments. The directive is expected to affect companies such as Enkash, Karbon, and Paymate. 

Meanwhile, the Enforcement Directorate is reported to have sought information on international transactions from Paytm Payments Bank. This follows earlier reports that said ED was investigating One 97 Communications, which operates Paytm, on suspicion of violation of foreign exchange rules.

“One 97 Communications Limited (‘Company”), its subsidiaries and its associate, Paytm Payments Bank Limited, have over time been receiving notices and requisition for information, documents and explanations from the Authorities, including Enforcement Directorate (ED), with respect to the customers that may have done business with the respective entities, and provided the required information, documents and explanations to the Authorities,” the company said in a statement.

Elsewhere, payments service provider PayU has partnered with the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) to enable merchants to accept digital payments through credit lines.

Moving on from fintech, Le Travenues Technology Ltd, which operates the travel booking platform Ixigo, on Wednesday, filed preliminary papers for an initial public offering.

Lastly, a new term to describe why we find it so difficult to concentrate: Popcorn brain.

In today’s newsletter, we will talk about 

• Srikanth Nadhamuni on building Trustt
• ClearTax’s playbook for GCC 
• Making informed choices with game

Here’s your trivia for today: Popular American clothing company Levi Strauss & Co. was founded in which year?

Interview

Srikanth Nadhamuni on building Trustt

Srikanth Nadhamuni wears many hats—founder, investor, and technologist, among others. But perhaps, you know him best for his work on Aadhaar. 

Now, Nadhamuni is creating new-age banking solutions leveraging AI at Trustt. In an interaction with YourStory, he discusses his vision for the company, his take on Gen AI, and more.

Insights: 

• Trustt (formerly Novopay) is an AI-powered SaaS-based core banking platform that helps consumers remit money, withdraw it, make payments, and avail themselves of a variety of banking and consumer-related products and services on its merchant network. 
• He says that fintechs, despite their expertise in financial products, often lag behind banks due to their reluctance to leverage innovations in cloud technology, which greatly enhance data storage and security practices. 
• Nadhamuni says the company [Trustt] is run quite differently from a lot of startups, and has been profitable for 3-4 years.

<Funding Alert>

Startup: Moove

Amount: $10M

Round: Debt

Startup: Ascend Capital

Amount: Rs 50 Cr

Round: Series A

Startup: Segwise

Amount: $1.6M

Round: Pre-Seed

Gulf

ClearTax’s playbook for GCC 

After achieving significant milestones and growth in India, Clear, called ClearTax in the GCC, entered the region in 2021 after raising $75 million in Series C round led by Kora Capital, Stripe, Alua Capital, Think Investments, and existing investors.

It has launched invoicing and taxation products for medium to large enterprises in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). It also assists businesses in adjusting to digital mandates and helps in automating financial processes.

Expansion:

• The startup, working closely with government bodies like Zakat, Tax and Customs Authority (ZATCA), the tax authority of Saudi Arabia, plans to extend its offering to include VAT compliance, A/R automation, and B2B payments in the next 6-12 months.
• It provides integration options like API and file transfer methods, making it compatible with various billing systems like ERPs, POS, and hand-held devices. 
• To date, the platform claims to have onboarded more than 250 companies in the retail, telecom, and transport sectors.

Women Empowerment

Making informed choices with game

Nisha, a 19-year-old girl from a lower-middle-class family in Delhi, is studying to be a teacher. She has dreams and ambitions to pursue but life is not easy, and she must navigate through the realities of life.

Nisha is a character in a mobile game, Go Nisha Go, but she could well be one among the 116 million population of adolescent girls in India who are bogged down by societal mores and a lack of understanding of what they want.

Right to choose:

• Go Nisha Go is a free mobile game app for girls between the ages of 15-19 years. It provides reproductive health education (RHE) on menstruation, consent, and making choices on marriage, education, and career.
• The mobile game takes the user through five different levels, enabling them to explore, learn and develop decision-making skills through immersive role-play with the help of Nisha.
• The app also provides links to helplines of women-focused NGOs like TechSakhi, Rati Foundation, and Project Nyay'ri—not just as a way to help the character but equip the user with resources.

News & updates

• Price rise: The value of all the bitcoin in circulation, or market capitalisation, on Wednesday rose above $1 trillion for the first time since late 2021, according to CoinMarketCap data. The cryptocurrency also broke through the $51,000 level during the day, marking the first time it has hit this price since December 2021.
• Buyback: Uber Technologies said on Wednesday it would buy back up to $7 billion worth of company shares for the first time ever following a strong recovery in ride-share and healthy demand at its food delivery business.
• AI Boom: Nvidia overtook Google-parent Alphabet's stock market capitalisation to become the third biggest US company on Wednesday, days before the poster child of AI boom is due to report fourth-quarter results.

Popular American clothing company Levi Strauss & Co. was founded in which year?

Answer: 1853

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