Top 30 Fintech Influencers 2021 & the Indian Fintech

THE DIGITAL FIFTH REPORT TOP 30 FINTECH INFLUENCERS 2021 & THE INDIAN FINTECH ECOSYSTEM

No Sector or Industry would have experienced the growth it has seen without a few key individuals to influence it. These individuals have helped push the limits and explore uncharted waters. Over the past year, the fintech industry has seen a dramatic shift towards digital. With the ongoing pandemic, people have shifted their activities and transaction to make it entirely online. And under the guidance of these influencers, the Fintech and BFSI space has not only kept up, but surpassed the expectations in terms of keeping up with these shifting needs.

In order to call out a few of these individuals and give then the honour they deserve, The Digital Fifth has curated a list of India’s Top 30 Fintech Influencers from across the Fintech and BFSI space. This list has been made based on their contribution to the Fintech ecosystem, the impact and knowledgeability rather than their social media score. PAGE | 2

ABOUT US

Set up in 2017, we are India’s first Fintech consulting and advisory firm for Fintechs, Banks, NBFCs, Wealth Management, Mutual Fund and Insurance segments. We have been the go-to solution finders for established BFSI organizations and emerging game-changers alike.

While the Fintech landscape continues to evolve at a rapid pace, The Digital Fifth empowers businesses by providing them with tested as well as bespoke solutions for their digital evolution journey. A niche consulting firm, we focus on Digital Transformation, Fintech Training & Strategic Partnerships between start-ups and banks.

Our founders bring 50+ years of expertise in building & setting up Banks and driving transformation projects across US, Europe, Africa & Asia.

OBJECTIVES – Changing the way money moves – Business and ecosystem impact – Creating measurable value – Celebrate clients’ success AREAS OF EXPERTISE – Digital Strategy for Banks, FIs and Fintechs – Business and technology advisory – Digital Program management – Open Banking & Innovation – Market Insights & reports – Deep industry connect – Cybersecurity

OUR SERVICES – Consulting - Business, Digital & Technology Strategy – Fintech Learning and development – Partnership - Go to market & ecosystem access – Investor matchmaking and fund raising EXPERIENCE – Setting up of Digital Banks – Building and Executing digital strategy – Execution of business and technology strategy for banks, NBFCs and Fintechs – Digital & technology program management – Client matchmaking for Fintechs – Security and Governance www.thedigitalfifth.com PAGE | 3 INDIAN FINTECH INFLUENCERS 2021

1. Anurag Sinha, Co roles across divisions like 3. Arindam Das, CEO at DMI Founder of OneCard: payment solutions, structured Consumer Credit (DMI finance, etc. He also served Finance Pvt Ltd): on the Board of Sarvatra Technologies, Pune.

2. Arif Khan, Chief Digital Officer at NPCI:

Anurag Sinha is the Co- Arindam leads the Digital Founder and CEO of OneCard, Consumer and SME Finance a startup reimagining businesses at DMI Finance. the conventional credit With almost two decades card by providing a new of experience in various generation of credit built verticals including Business Arif Khan is the Chief Digital with full-stack technology- Development, Operations, Officer at NPCI. He leads the based features. OneCard Risk Management and Audit, strategic planning for digital is backed by investors like he has conceptualised, built transformation initiatives Sequoia Capital, Matrix and scaled large teams of the organization which Partners, and Hummingbird in Consumer, SME and is aimed at growing NPCI’s Ventures. Before founding Corporate Lending. DMI is new products portfolio OneCard, Anurag was the an NBFC which operates on basis customer needs and Co-Founder of Walnut, a a Partnership model with industry trends. The National personal finance app, which technology companies. Payments Corporation of India was acquired by Capital Float DMI gives fintech startups an umbrella organisation for in August 2018. Previously, API access to sandboxes operating retail payments and Anurag worked at ICICI thus helping them develop settlement systems in India. Bank in different leadership financial products for their target population.

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4. B.G. Mahesh, Co-Founder GetVantage. Get Vantage at Sahamati: is a platform that provides revenue-based financing for business owners, without the need for them to dilute equity or ownership. Bhavik has Domain Expertise across FinTech, Digital Payments, Mobile technologies & Financial Services. He has previously worked as Chief Growth Officer at the Over the last decade, she payments startup, ItzCash has been closely involved in and was a founding member setting up the business and of Radical Payments and ISTS B.G Mahesh is the co-founder taking it to scale. Kshama has Worldwide. of Sahamati, a Collective of an MBA, a Ph.D. in Finance, the Account Aggregator 6. Dhirendra Mahyavanshi, and is a GARP certified ecosystem. It is an initiative Co Founder of Financial Risk Manager. Prior that enables individuals to Turtlemint: to joining Northern Arc, she have greater control over their was the Head of the Finance data helps improve financial Department at the Goa inclusion in the country. Institute of Management. She Technocrat and an innovative has been a member of several thinker, Mahesh pioneered committees set up by the digital technologies in Indian Government of India related languages way before Digital to capital markets as well as India charter took shape. financial inclusion, and has Mahesh founded Greynium extensive experience across Information Technologies policy, financial advisory, Pvt Ltd a company that owns consulting, and academia. India’s largest multi-lingual 8. Hero Choudhary, Partner portal, Oneindia.com. at BEENEXT: 5. Bhavik Vasa, Founder of Dhirendra Mahyavanshi is the GetVantage: Co Founder of Turtlemint, an online Insurance platform that aims to simplify its customer’s insurance buying decision. Turtlemint has partnered with over 40 insurers in the market and currently boasts a turnaround time of under 10 mins.

7. Dr. Kshama Fernandes, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Northern Arc: Hero Choudhary is a Partner at BEENEXT, a venture capital Kshama is the CEO of Bhavik Vasa is the founder firm investing in startups Northern Arc Capital and its of Mumbai-based smart from India, Southeast Asia, founding Chief Risk Officer. alternative funding platform Japan, and USA. He has over

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14 years of experience in the Venture capital industry. leading many multi-bagger investments in consumer internet and FinTech growth companies in public markets. His portfolio includes startups like Phi Commerce, Coinbase, 1mg etc.

9. Ishan Bansal, Co Founder of Groww: Founder of Infosys and the paying credit card bill. The first Chair person of Reserve startup is currently valued at Bank of India’s (RBI) new $800million and has raised a innovation hub, which aims total of $175.5 million from 20 to promote advancement investors including Sequoia in the financial sector using Capital and Ribbit Capital. technology. Gopalakrishnan is 12. Neeraj Sinha, Head currently the Chief Mentor of - Retail & Consumer Start-up Village, an incubation Banking at SBM Bank: Hub for startups. Recognized as a global business and technology thought leader, Ishan Bansal is the Co- he was the president of Founder of Groww.in, a India’s apex industry chamber Bangalore based online Confederation of Indian investment startup that Industry (CII) for 2013-14, and targets First time investors served as one of the co-chairs and millennials. Groww of the World Economic Forum enables investors to open an in Davos in January 2014. account online and transact 11. Kunal Shah, Founder of in mutual funds and stocks Cred: online. The startup which was founded in 2017, currently has The founder of Freecharge has Neeraj Sinha is the head of a funding of over $59million returned to the Fintech arena Retail & Consumer Bank at and over 50,000 users. with Cred, a financial services State Bank of Mauritius – platform targeting consumers India. SBM Bank India was 10. Krish Gopalakrishnan, with high creditworthiness. the first foreign bank in India Chairperson of RBI Cred is a members-only app to obtain a banking licence Innovation Hub: which rewards customers from the Reserve Bank of India to operate as a Wholly Kris Gopalakrishnan is the Co with exclusive rewards for Owned Subsidiary in January

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2019. Dubbed as one of the most fintech-friendly banks in India, it currently partners with a plethora of Fintechs like Paynearby, Karbon Cards, Enkash etc to help extend banking services to a larger segment of the Indian population.

13. Nikhil Kamath, Co- Founder and CIO of the ecosystem. He is also an founded Zaggle in 2011 as a Zerodha & True Beacon: active angel investor whose network-agnostic payment portfolio includes startups platform on which merchants like OfBusiness, BharatPe, and consumers could Trell, Mosaic Wellness, GroMo, seamlessly interact. A start- Ripple Hire and CoHo. up evangelist, a strategist, and a serial entrepreneur 15. Priya Sharma Co-Founder who previously worked with of ZestMoney: PricewaterhouseCoopers Pvt. Ltd. and eYantra, Raj has extensive experience in setting up a business, structuring it, driving the sales, and scaling it to the next Nikhil is the co-founder of level. India’s largest discount broker 17. Rajat Agarwal Managing with more than 1 million Director of Matrix clients executing 10% of daily Partners India: retail trading volumes across NSE, BSE, MCX. Interestingly, the firm has remained bootstrapped through the last Priya Sharma is the CO 9 years of its journey. Nikhil Founder and COO of is also the co- founder of ZestMoney, one of the largest Rainmatter, a venture capital consumer lending fintechs in fund backed by Zerodha the country. Her experience and True Beacon, Alternative in areas like expertise in Investment Fund. investments, acquisitions, strategy has been a major 14. Nitin Gupta Founder and contributor in helping CEO of Uni: ZestMoney caters to its more With startups like PayU and than 5 million registered Rajat Agarwal is a managing Ola Fianncials under his consumers. Director at Matrix Partners belt, Nitin Gupta is back in India. Matrix is a US based 16. Raj N Phani, Founder and the fintech space with his private equity investment firm Chairman of Zaggle: Credit startup Uni. Uni has focusing on venture capital already raised $18.5Mn in Raj N. Phani, Founder and investments. Is investments seed funding despite not Chairman of Zaggle, has focus on segments like being MVP ready, proving over 20 years of business Fintech, Ed-Tech and Nitin Gupta’s credibility in consulting experience. He Consumer brands. His current

www.thedigitalfifth.com PAGE | 7 fintech portfolio include experience at HDFC Bank, 20. Ravishankar G V, startups like Razorpay, Credit Rajesh helped grow its retail Managing Director at Vidya ZipLoan, Avail Finance, lending book to USD 50 billion Sequoia Capital: Elemential Labs, LiquiLoans, and led teams comprising of OneCard, Jupiter, Ola more than 3,000 bank officers Financial Services, GoDutch 19. Ramgopal Subramani, etc. Chief Operating Officer 18. Rajesh Kumar, of Perfios: Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer of TransUnion CIBIL Limited:

Ravishankar G V is a Managing Director with Sequoia Capital in India. His portfolio includes segments like Consumer tech, Consumer, Education and Financial Services. He Ram is the Chief Operating currently serve on the boards Officer of Perfios, a leading of fintechs like Capital Float, product technology company Five Star finance, Finova enabling businesses to Capital, India Shelter Finance Rajesh Kumar is the aggregate structured Corporation and Turtlemint. Managing Director and CEO and unstructured data, Ravishankar has been a of TransUnion CIBIL Limited. curate, analyze and help in director at Sequoia for the Prior to joining TransUnion decision-making. He has past 14 years. CIBIL Limited, Rajesh was the over 26 years of experience Group Head for Retail Credit in Product Development 21. Reeju Datta, Co-Founder and Risk at HDFC Bank where for technology companies, of Cashfree: he was the key member of the varying from startups, mid- leadership team responsible size to large software houses for conceptualizing, like Microsoft, and an in depth managing and growing the understanding of business, bank’s retail credit portfolio technology and processes comprising consumption that make a software product loans, commercial loans, and engineering organization to vehicle loans along with the not only succeed, but sustain payment business of the the momentum through bank. With two decades of constant innovation.

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Reeju Datta is the Co Founder of Cashfree, a Y Combinator backed, payments and banking technology startup that enables businesses in India to collect payments online and make payouts. The platform is currently being used by over 50,000 payment services to BoP architect behind India ‘s first businesses to help them segment. Sasidhar is an Payment Gateway turned fulfil their parment needs International development Neobank, Razorpay. Founded like vendor payouts, wage professional with two decades in 2014, The product suit of payouts, bulk refunds etc. of experience in leadership Razorpay Caters to the end positions managing business, -to-end payment needs of its 22. Sameer Brij Verma, investments and advisory customers. Over the course Managing Director at in financial inclusion, digital of 6 years, the company has Nexus Venture Partners: finance and economic morphed from B2B Payment development. Gateway into a Financial Conglomerate. 24. Shanti Ekambaram Group President – 26. Smrithi Ravichandran, Consumer Banking Business Head - & Member of Group Payments, Consumer & Management Council Commercial Lending & Kotak Mahindra Bank: Insuretech at Flipkart:

Sameer is a Managing Director at Nexus Venture Partners, one of India’s first homegrown VC brands with a $1.6 billion early stage venture fund . His operational expertise lies in product management, business development, sales Shanti Ekambaram is the Smrithi Ravichandran is the acceleration, recruiting, follow- Group president of Consumer Business Head of Payments, on fundraising, and scaling. Banking at Kotak Mahindra Consumer & Commercial At Nexus, Sameer focuses on Bank and a member of the Lending & Insuretech at consumer internet, enterprise Banks Executive Board that Flipkart. She is an experienced / SaaS, ed-tech, healthcare drives and oversees the Kotak e-commerce leader with and b2b commerce domains. Mahindra Groups growth an interest in technology charter. She has also been & internet ventures and 23. Sasidhar Thumuluri, CEO recognized as among the top have a vast experience & MD of SUB-K Impact 100 most influential women in different aspects of Solutions: in the country by Fortune technology business - Sasidhar Thumuluti is the MD Magazine. business development, and CEO of SUB-K Impact large deal closures, creation 25. Shashank Kumar Co Solutions, a digital finance of world class products Founder of Razorpay (Fintech) company that to solve consumer needs, offers affordable, accessible Shahsank Kumar is the P&L handling of the and scalable financial and Co-Founder, CTO and Tech organization and drive to positive bottomline, www.thedigitalfifth.com PAGE | 9 demand generation and to the customer using new age marketing driven by data alaytics to analyse the technology. customer behaviour. The startup, which was founded 27. Sudipta Roy, Group Head in 2017, has currently received - Unsecured Assets, a funding of $43million. It Cards, Payment Solutions is backed by Amazon, Accel & Millennial Banking: Partners, SAIF Partners, N.R. Group Country Manager if Narayana Murthy’s Catamaran Visa for India and South Asia. Ventures, Infosys co-founder With more than 25 years of Kris Gopalakrishnan, and experience across banking, Hemendra Kothari of DSP Cards & payment products, Group. investments, insurance 30. Vinay Agrawal Chief and Fintech across Asian Executive Officer of markets, he brings with him, Angel Broking Group: a strong understanding of Sudipta Roy is the group the India and South Asia Vinay Agrawal is the CEO of head of Unsecured Assets, marketplace and relationships Cards, Payment Solutions with regulators, media and & Millennial Banking at industry stakeholders. Visa is a ICICI bank. He is a seasoned global payments technology expert in Consumer Banking, company which enables Payments and FinTech consumers, businesses, banks professional with over 20 and governments to use years of experience in Asia. digital currency. Additional competencies 29. Varun Dua, CEO of Acko include in-depth Angel Broking, one of India’s General Insurance: understanding of payments largest broking houses. systems with specific focus He has been a part if the on transit systems, cards company for the past 20 years technology and operations and has been a major catalyst systems having designed in the company’s adoption and customised a core cards technology for business system from scratch during a enhancement. Under his green field launch process. leadership, Angel broking has also recently opened itself to 28. T.R Ramachandran, API integration via SmartAPI. Group Country Manager Varun Dua is the Founder Angel broking currently India & South Asia of and CEO of Acko india’s manages ₹192,830 million Visa: first Insurtech Company. It in client assets and over 2.7 T R Ramachandran is the provides consumer insurance million operational broking products that are personalised accounts.

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Sachin Bansal, CEO of Navi

FINTECH LEADER OF THE YEAR

Sachin is the Co Founder and CEO of Navi Technologies, a Company offers technology platform and data analytics to simplify loan application processes and tailor loan terms to individuals and micro, small, and medium enterprises in India. During the pandemic Navi became one of the top three digital lenders in the country. Through this new venture, Bansal aims to simplify and improve accessibility and affordability of financial services for a billion Indian users. Navi has currently raised a total of over $500million in funding from 14 investors despite being less than 2 years old. The company has also acquired DHFL General Insurance and MavenHive over the last 2 years.

Before Navi, he was also the co-founder of Flipkart, the ecommerce giant that was acquired by Walmart for $16 million in 2018.

Sachin has made a deep impact in the financial services sector in India, through investments in companies like Altico Capital, U Gro Capital, IndoStar Capital, and the acquisition of mutual fund business of Essel Group.

www.thedigitalfifth.com PAGE | 11 THE DIGITAL FIFTH ECOSYSTEMS INDIA FINTECH LANDSCAPE JANUARY 2021

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Before 2010: 2019 till date: Initial stage of Indiastack continues to development of digital positively impact Fintechs marketplaces focused on with newer services. generating leads for loans NeoBanks have emerged and insurance business as a segment of choice 2010 - 2014: for investors. Embedded Finance players are Like every other introducing “Fintech as ecosystem, Indian a service line” in their Payment ecosystem grew current business models immensely across wallets, by either developing it pre-paid cards, point of organically or buying out sale platforms, payment Fintechs. gateway platforms Lending startups are 2015 - 2018: going through evolution Introduction of Indiastack phase. Complex areas (Aadhaar / eKYC / UPI / like Trade Finance and eSign etc) simplified as B2B startups are getting well as disrupted Payment, support in the new wave. Lending, Insurance, Wealth business. While wallets collapsed due to UPI, Lending Fintechs/Insuretech prospered. Wealth business went through challenges due to Direct plans of Mutual Funds.

www.thedigitalfifth.com PAGE | 13 INDIAN OPEN BANKING ECOSYSTEM

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The banking ecosystem of India has undergone rapid changes in the past 5 years, moving from a traditional product centric, inside-out approach to a consumption based, outside-in approach. With the evolution of open banking, pioneered by BFSI players like Yes Bank, Kotak, RBL etc, the ecosystem has now grown to include NBFC and other tech players who have created partnership within the system. Open banking has now become a part of their organizational culture. The ecosystem has also seen the emergence of players in the segment of API Validation and data driven solutions, enabling it to grow into perhaps what can be called the most comprehensive and holistic open banking ecosystem in the world The open banking network can be broadly classified into 5 categories. With the Bank APIs forming the bottom layer, followed by a technology stack partners on top. This ecosystem is enabled by key players who perform tasks like data validation, analytics and also provide infrastructure. The effectiveness of this network has led to the rise of several use cases like Neo banks, digital banks and big tech players who use bank APIs for their underlying operations. The ecosystem is also supported by investors.