Several Founders, CXO Bankers, CXO Fintech professional participated in the discussions:
- Mr Manian KVS, President – Corporate & Investment Banking, Kotak Mahindra Bank
- Mr Manish Khera, Founder & CEO, Arthimpact Finserve (P) Ltd, Happy Loans
- Mr. Surendra Jalan , Founder & CEO at OHMY technologies Private Ltd.
- Mr Ravi Rajagopalan, MD & CEO, Empays Payment System India P Ltd
- Mr Sunil Dalal, Managing Director, Softcell technologies Ltd
- Mr Sridhar R, President & Credit Risk Officer, Lakshmi Vilas Bank
- Mr Narayan Rao, Chief Services Officer, Suryoday Small Finance Bank
- Mr Pratyush Halen, Founder and CEO Fingpay (Tapits Technologies Pvt Ltd
- Mr Ketan Doshi, Managing Director, Paypoint India Network (P) Ltd
- Mr. Ravi Shankar, Co founder & CEO, Active Intelligence Pte Ltd.
- Mr Anil Kumar Gupta, Associate Director, Microsave-Financial Inclusion consulting
- Mr Neeraj Chandra, Head of Operations, Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank
- Mr Sony A, Head – Digital, South Indian Bank
- Mr Salil Chugh, Global Consulting Practice(APAC) at Experian
- Mr Anand Bajaj, Founder & CEO, Nearby Technologies Private Ltd
- Mr Abhishek Arun, Vice President, Paytm
- Mr Kamonasish Aayush Mazumdar, Chief Marketing Officer, MeraEvents
- Mr Ajay B Panicker, CEO & Founder, NetPay Limited
- Mr Vaibhav Sangvi, Chief Technology Officer, Clix Capital
- Mr. Rahul Dayal, Senior Vice President & Head-Business Solutions Group Liabilities , cards & BI, RBL Bank
- Mr. Vaibhav Sangvi, Chief Technology Officer, Clix Capital
- Mr Harveer Singh, former Head of Product Marketing, Empays Payment Systems Ltd.
- Mr Anil Shenoy, Director and Risk Management, First Data Corporation
- Mr Vikas R Panditrao, Advisor, Forum of Industry Academic Knowledge Sharing(FIAKS)
- Many other CEO/CXO Bankers & Fintech professionals on FIAKS Forum
Two important questions were discussed in the FIAKS community regarding banks:
- Are Indian banks allowed to give seed fund investment to startups?
- Do any banks offer seed funding to startups?
These questions, however, only pertain to seed fund in cash / equity, not in kind, incubation, or loan. So a community member starts the discussion in 2 pointers –
- Regulated by the Banking Regulation Act, which limits the stake in because when it comes to non-banking operations, the stake limit is X percent. Seed stage is not defined in the act. It is more of an investment stage call of the banks
- Banks like ICICI and YES have invested in startups but not seed. This is seen through a direct stake, through SME funds or other entities are created outside the bank.
To which a member elaborates that banks, almost all over the world and even more so in India, are traditionally not good at equity investing. Culturally, the organisation has a lower risk appetite than is required for equity, much less for private equity and even lesser for Seed capital kind of business. It is another matter that many a time they lend assuming it is debt but it lands up being equity risk without the returns associated with it. Coming back to the Fintechs, while banks are not good at equity investment, they are trying to wet their feet by investing in Fintechs in really small doses with an outlook that these are in allied businesses and some of these may cannibalise their current business, so it’s better to have a stake in the new pie even if you can’t create the new pie yourself. But this is still marginal.
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