'India's fintech landscape has a gap in cross-border payments'

Bengaluru: London-headquartered fintech Wise entered India in 2013 to support India’s inbound remittances. Today, it claims to have taken 10% of that market. Last year, it launched an outbound remittance product as well. In a conversation with DH’s Anushree Pratap, Wise’s APAC (Asia–Pacific) Head of Expansion SK Saraogi discussed why India is a big market for Wise and the gaps they have identified in its fintech industry. Edited excerpts:

What is your take on the overall fintech landscape in India?

India has been one of the most exciting places for fintech in the last 5-10 years. Of course, UPI is sort of the darling in the payment world, but it goes beyond that. India probably has one of the best domestic payment offerings and ecosystem today.

VCs say that India’s fintech space is overcrowded - where do you see gaps for Wise to play?

If I were to guess, this is a little bit more on the domestic side of things. On the cross-border payment front, the majority of the people still use traditional solutions which are not only inconvenient and costly, but take a lot of time. We still see clear gaps on that front and think there’s a lot of room for improvement, whether it is individuals wanting to send money overseas or businesses wanting to receive money from their customers overseas. That’s why we’re entering a space where we feel there’s enough and more growth opportunities for us.

What is the scope of expansion in outbound remittances in India, given the stronghold domestic banks have on this?

Based on the conversations that we have with customers, yes, a majority of people are doing this through traditional banks, but the experience they have with what we offer is so drastically better that it gives me the confidence that we are going to be able to do well. We are also very transparent and competitive in our pricing, along with the speed and the overall convenience. I don’t think it will happen automatically, but I believe there is enough of a gap from the experience that we see our customers get from us globally versus what I think the average Indian customer is experiencing today.

Why did you pick Hyderabad for your new office? How many people will work there?

Hyderabad fulfills all our requirements with the kind of talent that is available there across diverse functions including servicing, operations, engineering. In this office, all of our functions will be represented and we will build products. Another reason is the quality of life it offers, for the people that will move or travel there.

In terms of hiring, this is fast-evolving and we have very aggressive targets. The intent is for us to get to hundreds of people in the near future.

What are your expansion plans? Any new cities or inorganic growth planned?

Our expansion plans are two-fold: one is that we will double down in terms of our product offerings in India. Second, is it being a global hub, we will invest into teams that are going to build for customers globally.

We are not looking at any other cities at the moment, due to our philosophy that we would like all of our people to be together. On inorganic expansion, nothing imminent, but that doesn’t mean we’re never open to it.