PagarBook aims to build full stack digital banking solution

By Leandra Monteiro

Sequoia and India Quotient-backed staff attendance & payroll management start-up, PagarBook announced that they are building a full stack digital banking solution for SME Employees.

As part of this larger strategy, PagarBook is set to launch Savings Accounts for SME Employees and has already launched PagarBook Cash, a first of its kind credit product based on the monthly salary of SME employees on its platform.

While targeting to open 1 million savings accounts within the next few quarters, PagarBook Cash has already seen a great start, with tens of thousands of loans already being disbursed. The average ticket size is INR 5,000/-. Within the next six months, PagarBook expects this number to hit 1,00,000 loans disbursed a month.

The segment of SME employees has been underserved by the mainstream banking ecosystem for far too long. More than 2 million employees’ salaries are processed on the PagarBook platform which significantly enhances PagarBook’s ability to comprehensively serve this segment.

Speaking of the benefit, Rupesh Kumar Mishra, Co-founder, PagarBook opined, “100+ million SME employees contribute a major chunk of the Indian economy. Their lack of financial and professional profiling is core to them not being part of the mainstream financial ecosystem. Over the last 2 years we have built a full suite of softwares starting from facial recognition system for attendance to payroll management solutions, curated for multiple segments of SMEs. Now this large and sticky base of SMEs is helping us scale the digital banking products rapidly.”, to which added Arya Adarsha Gautam, Co-founder & CTO, “Our team has deep expertise in building tech and products for this segment, given we help millions of them manage payroll finances. Combining all this, we are in prime position to react quickest to the needs of SMEs and provide most suitable solutions. We are aggressively hiring tech talent to build world class financial products for this segment”.

“The RBI’s latest Financial Inclusion Index of 53.9 is a testimony to India’s SME employee base being plagued with poor access to financial services. Our experience with 50 lakh SMEs means we are now well placed to become a world class, curated, full stack digital banking experience, that will solve the need for full range of quality financial services for SME employees,” added Abhiroop Chatterjee, SVP – Financial Services, PagarBook, and erstwhile senior management from Ujjivan Small Finance Bank, who brings a decade and a half of experience in the financial inclusion space.

PagarBook launched ‘BetonBook’ in Bangladesh last month and is scheduled to launch in select Southeast Asian markets within the next two quarters, where similarity in demography and SME market dynamics shows huge potential for PagarBook to successfully replicate its playbook.