Aditya Birla Capital is refreshing its digital strategy with fintechs in tow
Aditya Birla Capital is reinventing its digital identity to make it simpler for customers to use its services, and fintech startups will play a key role in this transition.
Aditya Birla Capital (ABC), one of the marquee financial services companies in India, is refreshing its digital journey by launching a single platform to address all its customer requirements. The good news is that fintech startups will play a key role in this strategy.
ABC offers protection, investment, asset creation and transaction-related financial services, including products and services such as insurance, mutual funds, stock investments, financing, wealth management, advisory, etc.
A part of the Aditya Birla Group, the company has over Rs 4 lakh crore in assets under management, with a consolidated lending book of about Rs 1.09 lakh crore. ABC has over 1,403 branches across India and more than two lakh intermediaries, comprising of agents, channel and bank partners.
Since its inception in 2007, the company has seen several broad trends in the Indian market, where financial services segments remained underpenetrated, growth opportunity was large, and ‘digital’ was projected to rule the future.
“Having worked very strongly in the past with the intermediaries, I think it was time to create a direct digital acquisition platform, which allows us to serve the four important customer requirements, all-inclusive in an omnichannel manner,” says Pankaj Gadgil, Group Head - Digital, Payment & Analytics, Aditya Birla Capital Limited.
Gadgil is also the Managing Director and CEO of Aditya Birla Housing Finance Limited, a subsidiary of ABC.
User requirements
Gadgil believes today’s customers have four important requirements in their engagement for financial services — free, perfect, now, and personalised.
Given the breadth of its financial services offerings, ABC’s digital arm wants to provide an easy-to-use, single-experience zone for its customers where they can engage with the company face-to-face or virtually.
At present, the platform is a work in progress, with ABC building the team and deploying the best available technologies.
Gadgil says, “We are very hopeful that once we come up with the best in class app and refreshed website, Aditya Birla Capital will have a diverse set of customers who will come and experience our platform.”
Startup engagement
Besides its digital transformation, ABC is closely engaged with the Indian startup ecosystem, especially the fintechs, in what Gadgil calls the “inside out and outside in” strategy.
This would mean that not just ABC but also the Aditya Birla Group will have a platform to put forth the pressing challenges within their respective organisations and allow the fintech startups to solve them.
Dubbed the InFiniTe platform, ABC launched it in May this year.
“In order to ensure that we are at the cutting edge of innovation and identify the business challenges, the InFiniTe platform allows us to identify the potential opportunities for us to innovate by collaborating with fintech startups,” Gadgil says.
The programme follows the philosophy of three ‘I’— innovate, incubate, and invest.
Essentially, ABC puts up its business problems and challenges it would like to solve on the platform. It also has a governance mechanism, in the sense that these are cases that potentially have a high impact or a return on investment.
According to Gadgil, several challenges were put up for fintech startups to come out with a solution.
For example, how can one automate the entire verification process for customers before they buy any insurance policies, or create a gamification platform using Metaverse for financial planning. It could also be a chatbot-based digital platform for payments collection. The list is long.
Next, the fintech startups understand the challenges and work on their solutions to develop and present a proof of concept within 90 days. According to Gadgil, in many cases, fintech startups are closer to coming out with a solution.
Finally, if there is a potential for a long-term engagement, then ABC may also invest in the startup.
“The InFiniTe platform is completely democratic as there are opportunities for the fintechs to come in and participate in the programme. It is essentially a matchmaking platform,” says Gadgil.
The first batch of this programme has already started, and ABC aims to have at least 10 PoCs by May next year.
In the first batch of InFiniTe programme, ABC shortlisted 20 fintech startups from a pool of 100.
Roadmap ahead
Through the InFiniTe platform, ABC expects the solutions developed by fintechs will enhance productivity, reduce cost, or even open a new business opportunity.
ABC has partnerships with several other Indian fintechs, including Paytm, PhonePe, PolicyBazaar, and Google Pay, to name a few, who assist it in its other businesses.
For example, as a licensed regulated financial services entity, ABC becomes a gateway for other fintechs who would like to use its platform to reach out to a wider customer base, especially for lending. It also has partnerships pertaining to online payments.
Gadgil terms the engagement with fintech startups, through the InFiniTe platform, as a great learning experience as these companies come with an open mind and a fresh perspective to the solutions.
“This (InFiniTe platform) allows us to democratise our problems and crowdsource the solutions,” he adds.
The future roadmap is clear for ABC. It wants to deepen its engagement with startups not just in India but also abroad.
Gadgil says its programme has evinced interest from global accelerators. Besides, given the Aditya Birla Group’s global presence, opportunities to partner with startups outside India are ripe.
“The InFiniTe platform keeps us green as it helps us to co-create products and solutions rather than reinventing the wheel. Also, we are able to dish out these propositions faster than the market,” says Gadgil.
(The story was updated to correct the designation.)
Edited by Suman Singh
