When Bankers become Entrepreneurs
Story of how four senior bankers decide to become entrepreneurs and decide to disrupt the banking services industry
Thursday December 29, 2016 , 2 min Read
Coming from a business family, the kidda of starting and doing something was always their with me. That is when i met my future to be partners in Standard Chartered Bank, Bangalore. We all had the same vision i.e to bring transparency, fairness and improve service levels for SMEs/ MSMEs who deal with corporate banking teams of various banks. Thus, SaveDesk was born , officially on September, 2015.
Initial few months were tough. We learned it in a hard way that the respect, faith & time client gives you as a banker is totally different from you being an entrepreneur. Probably, when in bank, clients trust the bank name more than the banker. May be, that is the reason why bankers take their clients for granted.
Then came our first client, then second and so on so forth. We started meeting various business profiles, segments and we were totally convinced by our 6th month that our vision is appalled by clients.
FY15-16 was tough and good in a sense that we were now learning the tricks of trade. We clocked a revenue of INR 2.7 Mn with 8 clients in kitty. More than revenue, what we dealt in terms of volume was tremendous. More than USD 80 Mn of transactions dealt with, almost all products associated to corporate banking dealt with, dealings with more than 10 banks in Bangalore. I must say, some achievement for a start up. We are now targeting a volume of USD 250 mn for FY16-17 and a revenue of INR 15 Mn.