Building bridge between banks & their customers, Tarun Nazare, Co-Founder & MD, Neokred

By Robin Amlot

Today, India, tomorrow, the GCC and then… Neokred’s plans to take its API-based digital platform solutions to the world

Neokred sees itself as a bridge connecting the trust and infrastructure of Indian banks with the agility and innovation of the firm’s customers. The company’s solutions have already cut go-live time from 18 months to just 3 months – freeing up time and resources for its customers.

At Neokred, technology is viewed not just as a tool but as a catalyst for transformation. The firm is building a platform that empowers brands to connect with their customers, fostering trust and loyalty. Its solutions are designed to not only meet the needs of the Indian market but also aim to set a global benchmark for customer experience.

The firm offers a product range that currently encompasses 3 specific solutions:

• CollectBot – this Integrates a range of frictionless payment solutions.
• ProfileX – allows the identification and onboarding ideal customers using 360° profile data
• Blutic – respectful data processing and retention practices

As an example, KYC (‘Know Your Customer’) is a fundamental regulatory requirement aimed at preventing money laundering, fraud, and identity theft. Historically, KYC involved manual verification processes that required customers to submit physical documents, leading to delays and potential errors. The advent of digital KYC has transformed this space, enabling faster, more accurate, and seamless verification processes.

Neokred and its KYC APIs within Profile X are at the forefront of digital transformation, offering cutting-edge solutions that simplify and streamline KYC procedures. The company’s approach is rooted in leveraging advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and blockchain to create a secure, efficient, and user-friendly KYC process.

Neokred’s digital KYC solution represents a significant step forward in the way businesses approach identity verification. By harnessing the power of AI, blockchain, and seamless integration, Neokred not only simplifies the KYC process but also enhances security and compliance. Essentially, the firm has built a frictionless customer journey in the BFSI segment.

Tarun Nazare, Co-Founder and Managing Director of Neokred, said: “When I say frictionless, it is about understanding the customer on an individual level, helping brands to recognise their customers’ potential with the products that we have. Our KYC solution uses a mobile number-based intelligence report that gives one KYC identifier and a persona of who the customer is, how is he or she transacting, and what kind of income pattern the customer has?”

The company’s API-powered Profile X mobile number intelligence builds a complete user profile by accessing metadata associated with the phone number. It confirms user details like name, mobile number, and email for secure onboarding while, at the same time, with user consent, it can identify active social media accounts and linked services for a well-rounded view of the user’s online footprint, including financial transactions and employment data.

Neokred’s real-time user identity verification solution verifies identities accurately in seconds, ensuring a smooth onboarding experience, allowing for the verification of documents against regularly updated databases and cross-checking addresses with trusted sources. It also uses secure facial scanning technology for advanced identity verification, reducing the risks of identity theft and financial fraud, and enabling an immediate response to potential fraud.

“So, when they sell to customers, institutions know that the customer has the capacity to buy the products. That’s as important for an investment product as it is for a lending product,” said Nazare.

What is Neokred expecting from open banking?

“The opening up of the open banking ecosystem in India and the data it can generate not only gives insights from the financial transactions of an individual but also allows for the analysing of the customer in terms of whether the customer knows how to handle money. This is the kind of question that open banking and the respective data that comes from it can address – use cases based on this are already being put in place for lending.

“A similar use case is being implemented in WealthTech companies; it can show fund managers about the risk capacity of potential investors. Some might have a higher risk capacity, some might have a medium risk capacity, or some might have very small risk capacity. That information can translate into fund allocation strategies.

“There is a job of education to be done to bring people’s financial understanding up to their level of the understanding of their mobile phone, for example. To give you an insight, it starts with we come from a background where we have been taught how to save money. We don’t come from a background where we have been taught how to invest or multiply money. Fortunately, there has been intervention from the government, as well as certain bodies to inculcate a habit of investing.”

What comes next for Neokred?

India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023 provides for the processing of digital personal data in a manner that recognises both the right of individuals to protect their data and the need to process such personal data for ‘lawful purposes’. Against that background, Nazare said: “We are actively working on data and our integration of the AI modules inside the data. We are currently testing with multiple LLMs – modules from Gemini, ChatGPT, and various other sources to give a persona of the customer. We are trying to ask AI to tell us more about the customer using their historical data. The aim is to understand the customer’s risk profile, whether it’s an investment risk profile or whether it’s a lending risk profile.

“Furthermore, that should mean giving suggestions or advice to our customers, saying: ‘Hey, you can do multiple number of investments in other products’, as well as defining the customer’s investing to savings ratio.”

How do you see Neokred evolving over the course of the next few years?

“We have created products for the Indian domestic market. Now, we are looking at implementing these products in the international market as well. Our target market for penetration in the next stage is the MENA region, specifically the GCC. We want to provide these products to those geographies as well and create a larger base on a global level.

“Although our market research identified differences between Indian customers in the domestic market and Indians who are in the MENA region, we will be targeting them first before extending our product offering to GCC nationals.