MUDRA Scheme Can Be The Game Changer For Economic Stability: S Gurumurthy

By Manu Sharma

MUDRA (Micro Units Development and Refinance Agency) was brought in to address the issue of financial assistance to small and medium enterprises and is a potential game-changer for the economy, however, the RBI put a brake saying banks have no money to lend, said S Gurumurthy, Economic Analyst and Columnist.

Addressing the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) Annual Members Meet 2017 he said now that money is there, MUDRA will also work. This will be the extended benefit for the Informal sector, as we all know, contribute 50 per cent to the GDP and 90 per cent to the total employment. 

Gurumurthy while addressing the topic on the Economy Fast Forward - Demonetization, GST, Budget 2017 and Digital India in Bengaluru he says that SMEs sector are the ones taking the maximum hit now. I’m not saying there have been no problems during the demonetisation drive, and there was a miscalculation on the nature and extent of problems. It is more than possible that the RBI may have thought printing 6-7 lakh crore currency would have been enough because it was expected that only Rs 10 lakh crore would come back to the system. This kind of mis-judgement may have happened. But, the fact is that this measure definitely will help change the course of economy from speculation to real growth and from asset appreciation to productive growth. 

Gurumurthy also stressed that Indian government has always been in favour of borrowed economic theories “India Centric think tank is essential for any such inevitable step like the note ban. No burrowed theories can be work for the India economy.” 

Others who spoke at the event include Vikram Kirloskar, Vice Chairman, Toyota Kirloskar Motor Pvt Ltd and Ravi Raghavan, Chairman, CII Karnataka State Council.

Syngene, Herbalife Jointly Open Research and Development Centre in Bengaluru

Herbalife Ltd, a US-based firm that sells weight-loss shakes and nutritional supplements, announced the opening of its first research and development (R&D) centre in India in Bengaluru in partnership with Biocon Ltd’s research services arm Syngene International Ltd. The new centre will house a group of Syngene scientists who will work closely with Herbalife on product development, sensory evaluation and testing among other services.

The 3,000 sq ft facility is located inside Bengaluru-based Syngene’s campus and is Herbalife’s fourth such lab worldwide. Its new lab in the city will house a group of Syngene scientists who will work closely with Herbalife on product development, sensory evaluation and testing and scientific content writing among other services.

The nutrition R&D lab will house a group of Syngene scientists that will work for Herbalife Nutrition on various research and development projects. Herbalife will work closely with Syngene in the areas of R&D in the field of nutrition - including product development, sensory evaluation and testing, scientific content writing pertaining to nutritional products and supplements, project management, formulation development, analytical service, stability study and other related services - and ensure that the right systems and processes are followed to deliver nutrition products for Herbalife India. 

Dr Manoj Nerurkar, chief operating officer, Syngene International Ltd, added, “This is our fifth dedicated centre and second for nutrition research. We see this partnership as an endorsement of Syngene’s scientific capabilities to deliver innovative solutions across a wide industry segment and look forward to working closely with Herbalife Nutrition to support their R&D requirements.”

“At Syngene, we are committed to developing products that enable people to lead healthier lives. We see many synergies in this association and feel it is natural for us to partner with Herbalife Nutrition to help them in their quest of advancing better nutrition,” said Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, managing director and chairperson of Biocon.

Syngene has set up similar exclusive R&D centres for other global biotechnology firms in the past, including Amgen Inc, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Abbott Nutrition and Baxter Inc.

“I think when we look at these we need to basically cater to a prospect of expansion,” Mazumdar-Shaw said when asked why Syngene was partnering with Herbalife to set up an exclusive R&D centre. The partnerships are decided based on understanding where the capabilities and expertise are and not by a bidding process, said Manoj Nerurkar chief operating officer of Syngene.

India is among the top five markets for Herbalife, which has for long been at the heart of a battle between US activist investors Bill Ackman and Carl Icahn, with Ackman saying the company is an illegal pyramid scheme guised as a multi-level marketing firm and Icahn challenging his claim.

When asked on a question on the numerous lawsuits and complaints filed against the parent company in regards to side effects on using some of the Herbalife products, Ajay Khanna, vice president and country head of Herbalife International India Pvt Ltd said, "we have just began our partnership with Syngene and in the next few months bring out products made for the Indian market. The lawsuits and complaints filed were against the parent firm and no such problems have been witnessed in India so far".

The nutraceutical market in India is poised for tremendous growth. Currently the market is about Rs 2.2 billion (Rs 220 crore) and is expected to grow to Rs 6.2 billion by 2020. This is a further commitment to the consumers in India to have the R&D lab so that we can bring products from our global portfolio much faster into the country,” said Khanna.

Khanna  said a substantial amount of investment had gone into setting up the facility in Bengaluru, however did not divulge on the actual amount invested in the facility.

Micromax Introduces New Range of Window and Split Air Conditioners

Reinforcing its vision to be a leading consumer electronics company, Micromax Informatics, India’s leading mobile brand, today introduced a new range of Air conditioners, to strengthen its presence in the AC market. This will be the first year to see a complete line-up of ACs from Micromax, after it successfully introduced ACs as a pilot project last year in June 2016. The range comprises of 07 split ACs and 01 Window AC right at the onset of the peak summer season in India.

To begin with, the focus markets will be the top 10 states (Punjab, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Delhi, Rajasthan, West Bengal, Telangana and Tamil Nadu) where Micromax has established a strong distribution with over 4000 sales touch points and backed it up with 400+ service centres to ensure strong after sales service support. In addition to the traditional retail touch points, the products will also be made available through leading E-commerce websites, in the months to come.

Commenting on the launch, Rohan Agarwal, Vice President, Consumer Electronics, Micromax Informatics Ltd. said, “We are bullish on the Indian air conditioner market and have invested heavily in building a strong product portfolio, a robust distribution network to ensure wide presence and best-in-class service experience.  Being a dominant consumer electronics player, Micromax enjoys a strong brand equity and our success in these segments has given us the confidence to foray into a new product category. The key differentiators for our ACs is the local innovation that we have built as per consumer feedback (100% copper two-way drainage, turbo cooling etc.), along with the right implementation. We believe that as a brand we are very well entrenched to grow this category.”

He further added, “At Micromax, we realize that service is of utmost importance in order to connect with the last mile. We are introducing the Micromax Home Assist application for our AC and TV consumers to help facilitate, raising any enquiry or complaints with utmost ease and faster redressal. We want to replicate the same success that we have witnessed in the LED TVs segment and achieve a double digit market share over the next 3 years in AC segment as well.”

Capital Float Nominated for Emerging Small Business Lending Platform of the international LendIt Industry Awards

LendIt, the world’s largest Fintech conference-recently announced - that they have selected Capital Float as a finalist in the Emerging Small Business Lending Platform category. Capital Float is India’s leading digital lending platform to SMEs. The Emerging Small Business Lending Platform finalists were chosen on their capability to demonstrate the greatest potential to impact the future of small business lending in the world. Capital Float is the only Asian representative in the category.

Capital Float was nominated as a finalist out of hundreds of applicants worldwide and by more than 30 industry experts who judged finalists representing innovation, emerging talent and top performers. Capital Float will compete for top honors within its award category at The LendIt Awards Ceremony on March 7 at the LendIt conference in New York City.

“Having been on the front lines of emerging and later stage Fintech companies for the past five years, we wanted to unveil our own best of the best industry accolades,” said Jason Jones, Co-Founder, LendIt. “We were positively overwhelmed with the high number and high caliber of entrees. These finalists represent some of the most innovative companies that are radically improving financial services through technology.”

“We are thrilled to be shortlisted for the LendIt Awards. This nomination is another feather in our cap of being the leading digital lending platform in India. LendIt offers a great platform for us to showcase our disruptive products to more than 5000 of our industry peers spanning across 40 countries,” said Gaurav Hinduja, Co-founder and MD, Capital Float. “We are proud to represent India at such a prestigious forum. This further boosts our confidence to continue innovating and serving the SME market,” he adds.

CASHe Disburses 1 Crore Loans Per Day and Aims At 30 Crore Disbursements by March 2017

Aeries Financial Technologies Pvt. Ltd., a fin-tech company promoted by serial entrepreneur and private equity investor V. Raman Kumar, today announced that CASHe, India’s fastest loan giving app for young salaried professionals is now disbursing loans well over 1 Crore per day in less than a year of operations. CASHe now processes an average of 450 loan applications per day for young salaried professionals. CASHe is now India’s leading and most preferred fintech company in the personal lending space.

Launched in April 2016, CASHe offers loans based on a combination of Big Data Analytics and proprietary Artificial Intelligence based algorithm, the Social Loan Quotient, which enables loan disbursal within 8 minutes.

“We have seen a fantastic response to our loan products with a month-on-month 45% growth in customer base and 60% growth in disbursal value in the past few months,” said V. Raman Kumar, Chairman, Aeries Financial Technologies Pvt. Ltd. “Our loan disbursements now stand at 1 crore per day and we have achieved a significant milestone of processing over 450 loan applications on a daily average – all this within a year of setting up our operations. We are now well set to disburse loans worth 30 crores for March 2017. CASHe has embarked on a tremendous growth trajectory to achieve a loan disbursement value of Rs 100 crore for the month of December 2017. We have leveraged innovative technology along with our proprietary Artificial Intelligence based algorithm platform, the Social Loan Quotient, to make loan disbursal hassle free for our customers, leading to over 70 percent of them returning for fresh loans.” he added.

CASHe provides hassle-free loans with its app enabled documentation and loan disbursal/repayment process. Powered by its industry-first algorithm driven credit scoring platform, The Social Loan Quotient (SLQ), CASHe quickly determines a user’s credit worthiness by using multiple unique data points to arrive at a distinct credit profile of the customer. SLQ is transforming the traditional credit rating measurements thereby providing immediate loans to the under-served young professionals who are kept out by traditional credit rating and banking systems. CASHe is completely automated and requires no personal intervention and no physical documentation. The average time taken for a loan to be disbursed is about 8 minutes, subject to proper submission of all documents.

Nearly 1/5th Wallet Transactions on FreeCharge Driven by Online Partners

Amidst increasing digital payments push and awareness amongst consumers, FreeCharge has announced that it is witnessing a major chunk of its transactions coming through online partners. Nearly 20% of the wallet transactions happening on the platform are on either one of the online merchant partners. This is closely followed by offline partnerships wherein Fuel and Food are the top 2 categories driving adoption and transaction.

In the offline space, fuel refilling and dine-out or food orders are driving growth for the firm. On a percentage basis, Fuel right now comprises 39% of the daily offline merchant transactions while the same figure for the food category stands at 29%. This is basis the fact that both these categories drive high repeat usage on the part of the customer and builds the digital transaction habit for the consumers.

FreeCharge had recently announced its plan of on-boarding 1 million merchants in the next 12 months already has a lot of online partners and will increasingly focus on offline space to meet the target. The company has already on boarded nearly 18,000 petrol pumps in the top 20 cities for example and plans to cover petrol pumps associated with HPCL, IOCL and BPCL pan India in a period of 2 months.

With an increasing focus on the less cash economy, FreeCharge is increasingly focusing on both online and offline partnerships to enhance its digital footprint in the payment space. Few of the prominent online merchants for the wallet firm include irctc, foodpanda, swiggy, bookymyshow, redbus, zomato amongst many others. In the offline space the prominent partners include McDonalds (West and South), Pantaloons, Shoppers Stop, Café Coffee day, Barista, Heritage Fresh and many others.

Speaking on the development, Sudeep Tandon, Chief Business Officer - FreeCharge said, “Partnerships with varied offline and online merchants form the bedrock of FreeCharge acceptance in the payments landscape. FreeCharge has witnessed a great response from the tech savvy online consumer base in terms of adoption and repeat usage. With the increased push on digital economy, we have recently seen the same happening in the offline space as well, which is a very promising trend for us. Our teams are working towards the goal of making FreeCharge the default payment app on the consumer's home screen and we wish to achieve this very soon.”

Snapdeal, Truecaller Partner to Make Your Shopping Experience Frictionless

Snapdeal, India’s largest online marketplace, has partnered with Truecaller, one of the leading communication apps in the world to enhance consumer experience by integrating Truecaller Priority in the company’s IVR and order confirmation numbers. Customers with Truecaller app installed on their mobiles will be able to easily identify and filter IVR or delivery verification calls when shopping on Snapdeal.

Any calls received by users who have placed an order on Snapdeal, while be clearly marked as ‘Snapdeal Order Team’ or ‘Snapdeal Delivery Team’, and color coded in purple; thus, assuring the users that the call is important and from a reliable source, not spam.

Jayant Sood, Chief Customer Experience Officer, at Snapdeal said, “We are very pleased to bring the Truecaller Priority feature to our platform. It will help reduce a key friction point in the delivery process; ensuring that our customers don’t miss out on any important calls from Snapdeal, and also increase the daily rate of deliveries for us by increasing the call completion rate.” 

Besides boosting customer satisfaction and ensuring that customers are always in the know about the status of their product, this feature will also reduce the rate of “no response” calls for Snapdeal.

“We constantly strive to enhance the user experience through safe and efficient products. With Truecaller Priority, Snapdeal ensures enhanced efficiency in its user communications while users get to know that call is critical and for relevant reasons. We are confident that such seamless experience will add immense value to both sides” said Arun Krishnan, Director, Strategic Partnerships at Truecaller.