Appreciate breaks down barriers for investing outside India, from India – removing high remittance fees, hidden charges, and minimum investment amounts. With this app, millions of Indians to invest in the $46 trillion U.S. stock market effortlessly. Investors can now purchase fractions of leading global stocks for as little as Re. 1.

The company was founded by Subho Moulik (CEO), Shlok Srivastav (COO), and Yogesh Kansal (CMO).

Mr. Subho Moulik, Founder and CEO of Appreciate, said, “This is huge savings and returns unlock where millions of people want to take the first step towards financial diversification but have always been deterred by high minimums, high fees, and a poor experience. We have solved bottlenecks others have failed to solve to make investing in U.S. stocks easy and low-cost.  With Appreciate, even a kirana store owner in Vidarbha can open a free U.S. trading account, buy a fraction of any U.S. stock for as little as Re. 1 – and participate in the growth story of these companies.”

He added, “Today, an investor needs to go to their bank, fill out an A2 form, identify and sign-up with a brokerage firm abroad, and then pay anywhere between Rs. 500 to Rs. 1,500 for the wire transfer, on top of dealing with the back and forth with a bank on remittance processing. This has been a key challenge for Indian investors who want to diversify their investments abroad – a challenge that we have worked on diligently and solved.”

Appreciate’s partners include YES Securities – a leading full-service Indian broker – for cost-effective access to Indian securities, and Samhita – a leading social sector financial inclusion and livelihoods accelerator – to promote financial literacy, a key enabling step towards driving mass adoption of regular saving and investing habits.

Appreciate’s user-friendly interface offers personalized investment recommendations and expert insights, supported by an AI-driven recommendation engine. Beyond U.S. stocks, the platform plans to expand its offerings to include Indian mutual funds, stocks, fixed deposits, and other domestic financial products, aiming to become the go-to financial destination for one billion Indians.

Mr. Prashant Kumar, Chairman of YES Securities (India) Limited, said, “Our partnership with Appreciate signifies a landmark moment where 1.4 billion Indians gain the unique opportunity to not only invest but to truly create wealth, now with seamless access to overseas markets. I firmly believe that this collaboration is not just about expanding our scale and distribution; it’s about elevating the standard of service we provide to our customers. Together, we see an exciting journey of innovation and growth that will have a lasting impact for years to come.”

Ms. Priya Naik, Founder and CEO of Samhita said, “Our partnership with Appreciate to drive financial literacy and empowerment using digital learning supplemented by digital saving and investing tools will provide support to women and those sections of society that are beginning their saving and investment journeys.  This is a key step to help 1.4 billion Indians build resilience through a regular saving and investing habit.”

In addition to providing a full suite of savings and investment products for consumers, Appreciate also has a strong B2B technology solution stack across investments, remittances, financial distributor management, cash management, credit sourcing, credit scoring, and Gen-AI applications.  The company works with multiple financial sector customers to embed these B2B technology solutions into B2B customer applications and customer interfaces, enabling B2B customers to achieve their product and customer goals better and faster.

The post Appreciate’s app helps Indian investors access global markets appeared first on Startagist.

According to data from Stocklytics.com, financial firms will spend $45.2 billion on AI in 2024. This spending will grow by 30% each year, reaching $97 billion by 2027.

AI has made a big difference in finance. It helps companies predict their future earnings and profits more accurately. Also, AI can find fraud in large amounts of financial data. Many companies use AI to check contracts and invoices, which makes decisions faster and improves the whole process.

Collaborative data from Statista, the IMF, and IDC reveal that financial companies are expected to spend $45.2 billion on AI solutions this year. By 2025, spending on AI will reach $58.3 billion.

AI spending in finance will keep growing. In 2026, it will be almost $75.2 billion or $30 billion more than this year. By 2027, it will reach $97 billion, showing a huge 177% increase in just four years. Overall, financial companies will spend $275 billion on AI in the next four years.

AI can also boost the financial market’s growth rate. According to a study by Accenture and Frontier Economics, AI can potentially increase economic growth rates by a weighted average of 1.7% points across 16 industries by 2035.

Financial companies that use AI well could see their profits go up by 38%. It can increase their growth rates by 4.3% and boost their value by $1.2 trillion by 2035.

The full story and statistics can be found here:  https://stocklytics.com/content/financial-sectors-spending-on-artificial-intelligence-to-grow-by-30-per-year-and-hit-97-billion-by-2027/

The post Finance sector’s AI spending to grow 30% yearly, hit $97B in 2027 appeared first on Startagist.

List of services include – Aadhaar Enabled Payment Services, Micro ATM Services, Domestic Money Transfers, Mobile & DTH Recharges and Bill Payments

For the initial launch, Hitachi Payment Services has partnered with YES BANK, demonstrating its commitment to collaborative efforts for financial inclusion. The partnership leverages YES BANK’s strong banking expertise and Hitachi Payment Services’ extensive network and technology infrastructure to provide reliable and secure financial services to the underserved.

The financial inclusion business will be operated under the brand ‘Hitachi Money Spot Plus’ through a network of retailers called Hitachi Partners and will have a strong focus in Tier 3 to Tier 6 towns across the country. Driving financial empowerment and innovation, the array of services under financial inclusion business has been made available through its comprehensive app ‘Hitachi Money Spot Plus’ on Google Playstore. The app provides a convenient one-stop platform for financial services and this digital approach complements the Hitachi Partners network, ensuring accessibility and seamless service delivery across the country.

On the launch of the financial inclusion initiative, Anuj Khosla, Chief Executive Officer – Digital Business, Hitachi Payment Services, said, “The remarkable growth of internet penetration and financial literacy in India, especially in our rural communities, presents an urgent call for a resilient payment infrastructure that can keep pace with this rapid expansion. Retailers and merchants are the last mile touchpoints, enabling easy access to finance for customers. Recognizing this, we are extending our services to include financial inclusion initiatives. In essence, we are not just building a payment infrastructure; we are building bridges to financial empowerment and contributing to the nation’s progress.”

Mr. Naveen Chaluvadi, Chief Digital Officer at YES BANK, said “YES BANK has partnered with Hitachi Payment Services to launch Hitachi Money Spot Plus as part of our commitment to promote financial inclusion. This initiative is aimed at enabling financial transactions at hinterlands, focus on taking digital benefits to last mile in an assisted digital mode”.

Anuj Saraswat, Business Head, Financial Services & Inclusion, Hitachi Payment Services, stated “At Hitachi Payment Services, innovation and financial empowerment are the guiding principles that drive everything we do. We believe that everyone should have access to the financial tools and resources that they require to progress, and we are committed to using technology to make that a reality. Our mission is to bridge the financial divide to empower individuals and communities to thrive. With ‘Hitachi Money Spot Plus’ we have embarked on a transformative journey to build a more inclusive financial ecosystem in India.”

The post Hitachi Payment Services launches new financial inclusion initiative under the brand Hitachi Money Spot Plus appeared first on Startagist.

The HPX initiative will collaborate with disruptors in the fintech and payments domain to deliver “superior payment experiences through groundbreaking innovation” for both businesses and consumers.

This programme will serve as a platform to unite diverse entrepreneurs who have been diligently crafting technology-driven solutions to shape the future of payments.

Participants in the HPX will get access to capital, an expedited path to commercialize innovative payment solutions, connections with key industry partners, and the opportunity to expand their reach beyond the borders of India.

As part of HPX, the company will concentrate on key segments, including core banking, banking as a service, embedded finance, Web3/CBDC, issuance, payments compliance, and AI/generative AI.
Hitachi Payment offers a range of payment solutions, including ATM services, cash recycling machines, white-label ATMs, POS solutions, toll & transit solutions, and payment gateway solutions.

The post Hitachi Payment launches program for Indian fintech startups appeared first on Startagist.

The fund will be utilized to expand and enhance its AceN Tech platform, which serves as a bridge between rural small businesses (MSMEs) and non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) and banks, facilitating seamless connections.

Navadhan’s AceN Tech platform has established a robust network of 15 lenders, including Ugro, Vivriti, Northern Arc, Caspian, Unitus, and TruCap. Through this platform, Navadhan has successfully enrolled over 2 lakh customers and disbursed over Rs. 100 crore, empowering rural enterprises and driving economic growth.

Prior to this funding round, Navadhan had secured pre-Seed funding from Anicut, BOPA, Flowstate, and notable angel investors such as Prasanna Rao (Arya.ag) and Sarah Djari (Impact Fintech PE). With the recent funding, Navadhan has raised a cumulative total of $ 16 million in equity and debt lines, forming partnerships with NBFCs.

Navadhan’s platform offers a seamless digital onboarding experience, simplifying the customer journey and eliminating paperwork. Leveraging data science, the startup’s proprietary alternative underwriting model assesses the digital footprint and cash flow surrogates to address the lack of income proofs and documents that have hindered access to banking services in rural markets. This innovative approach tackles the challenges posed by predominantly cash-based economies and limited banking track records in rural areas.

Nitin Agrawal, Founder CEO of Navadhan, mentioned, ” We are a tech-led and revenue-first fintech. Our mission is to help create new-wealth for the rural small-entrepreneurs by solving their challenges. We are leveraging Tech using alternative-credit, predictive analytics backed by data sciences. With both Tech and People on-ground, we are making it work for the NBFCs and Banks to generate priority sector assets. The new fundraise will add tailwinds to our growth plans. As the Smart-phone and UPI penetration improves, we have an early mover advantage in the rural markets.”

Smart phone and internet penetration is projected to increase by 44% by 2030, with significant growth expected in rural areas. As the number of UPI transactions inches towards the $4 trillion mark, most of the future growth will come from rural markets. Navadhan is well-positioned to leverage the surge in mobile usage, data connectivity, and UPI transactions.

Speaking about the development, Aparajit Bhandarkar of Varanium NexGen mentioned, “India is growing and Rural markets are not far behind. While most of the fintech space is focussed at Tier-1,2,3, we saw Navadhan’s focus on the informal market as a potential high-growth area. Navadhan’s founders are seasoned professionals with credible experience in financial services. With the right TAM, Team, Tech, and Traction, they are building an early mover’s advantage in rural-markets. Tech-led approach gives non-linear scalability to their model. We see Navadhan as a potential market leader in making.”

Navadhan was co-founded by Nitin Agrawal, along with Vijay Haswani, Anirudh Ramakuru, and Amit Biswal. Nitin saw the recent surge of digitisation as an opportunity to build a tech-led finance platform. This comes from his 2 decades of experience with a stint at ICICI Bank leading Product-Tech for micro-banking and agri-channel finance. He was also involved in setting up a rural finance business for Fullerton India. In the recent past, he also served as CEO of Spandana Sphoorty, a listed NBFC-MFI.

Looking ahead, Navadhan plans to introduce new solutions and offerings, including credit limits and tech tools for digitizing unorganized value chains. Another key initiative in ESG space is to propagate Climate Smart Agri practices among its rural-customer base.

The post Rural fintech startup Navadhan raises $1.5M in seed round appeared first on Startagist.

With this launch, the Hitachi Group has extended its association with Plug and Play in Asia Pacific. Plug and Play already has an existing association with Hitachi group in Japan and the United States.

This partnership’s primary objective is to bring innovative products and platforms into the Hitachi Payments ecosystem. It seeks to provide start-ups the capital, integration with the Hitachi Payments’ stack, access to extensive customer network and platform to launch and scale up. Additionally, it will endeavour to expand the impact of these solutions beyond India, accelerating the growth and innovation of the global fintech industry.

Hitachi Payments has been at the forefront of the digital payment revolution in India, bringing innovative solutions that have furthered merchant acceptance, as well as enabled accessibility of digital payments for the masses.

Anuj Khosla, Chief Executive Officer – Digital Business, Hitachi Payment Services, said, “Hitachi Payments is committed towards innovating and introducing new technologies to enhance the overall merchant and customer digital payments journey. The Digital Payments Innovation Hub will help in building future-ready offerings in the digital payments arena. The collaboration aims at investing in, co-creating, and deploying cutting-edge digital payment and fintech solutions that cater to the evolving needs of businesses and consumers.  It is an exciting time for the Indian fintech ecosystem, and we look forward to working closely with Plug and Play and start-ups to drive growth and innovation in the payments industry.”

Jupe Tan, Managing Partner of Plug and Play APAC, said, “We are delighted to be working with Hitachi Payments and to be able to deepen our relationship with the overall Hitachi group. Our goal is to provide Hitachi Payments with a line-of-sight into the most innovative start-ups that are shaping the financial services industry across India and Asia Pacific.”

Hitachi Payments is a pioneer in the payment industry in India, offering a comprehensive range of end-to-end payment solutions including ATM Services, Cash Recycling Machines, White Label ATMs, POS Solutions, Toll & Transit Solutions, Payment Gateway Solutions and innovative offerings such as SoftPOS, POS Value Added Services and Digital Merchant Onboarding. The company is committed to delivering exceptional customer experiences and driving financial inclusion across India.

The post Hitachi Payments launches its Digital Payments Innovation Hub in partnership with Plug and Play appeared first on Startagist.

Accolade Holdings, LetsVenture, family offices, and marquee angel investors, including Prashant Tandon (Founder of 1Mg), Pankaj Vermani (Founder of Clovia), and PE veteran Vishal Gupta (TA Associates) also participated.

The funds will be used to rapidly scale the assets under management, improve the existing technology stack, and build and expand the team.

“The funds will be used to further fuel our mission of offering innovative and affordable mortgage solutions to micro-SMEs and the next half billion Indians. The current fundraising will help us further invest in the team, technology, and operations to fulfill our mission,” said LoanKuber CEO Saurabh Nagpal.

The mortgage financing gap for MSMEs in India is estimated to be $300 billion, and LoanKuber addresses this huge opportunity. Founded by Saurabh Nagpal, LoanKuber has built an automated institutional co-lending platform for micro-mortgages, allowing for competitive pricing to the end customer, while generating significantly higher yields on its own NBFC balance sheet.

The company has created hybrid acquisition channels that include a digital connector platform, lead generation platform, and low-cost branches. The company claims it is profitable. It now aims to build an AUM of INR 200 crore in the next 15 months as part of its expansion plan.

The post Mortgage platform for underserved MSMEs LoanKuber raises $2M appeared first on Startagist.

This acquisition will boost the capabilities of Pine Labs’ Issuing Business under the Qwikcilver brand. The company said it will enable to strengthen its offerings across employee rewards and recognition, customer loyalty programs, and channel partner programs for medium and large enterprises.

Pine Labs has a leading presence in India in prepaid, stored value, and gift card solutions through its 2019 acquisition of Qwikcilver, an entity that merged with Pine Labs in September 2022. Saluto Wellness was co-founded by Siva Kumar and Anoop Nambiar in 2017.

Kumar Sudarsan, President, Issuing Business, Pine Labs, said “With Saluto’s platform, we expect to further enhance our leadership across Enterprise Rewards, Recognition, Incentive & Engagement programs. Saluto’s multi-tenant, enterprise grade offering will give us additional capabilities complementing our strengths.”

He further added, “Their solution, integrated with our offerings, will help us deliver more programs to our existing enterprise clients – resulting in larger and more long-term engagements. Leadership team at Saluto has over 40 years of collective experience across rewards, incentives, loyalty.”

K. Siva Kumar, Co-founder and CEO of Saluto Wellness, said “Our enterprise solutions are today being used across diverse industry verticals and we are excited to become part of a fast-growing, progressive fintech like Pine Labs and together scale our business further. We have already established a good working relationship with the Pine Labs team and look forward to being a driving force to further Pine Labs’ leadership in this space with innovative outcomes”.

The loyalty program market in India is expected to grow at a CAGR of ~15% over the next decade, and projected to reach US$ 10.8 billion by 2031, from nearly US$ 3Bn in 2022, as per Future Market Insights.

The post Fintech Pine Labs acquires enterprise platform from Saluto Wellness appeared first on Startagist.

Distinct Horizon an agritech company benefiting the farmers with a widely tested Urea Deep Placement technique to reduce chemical usage for productive farming. It develops advanced technologies to boost farmer’s marginal profit and increase their food production while protecting the environment. It aims at technological equipment of farmers by providing innovative machines. With a joint approach, Distinct Horizon and Ayekart will also support in farmer training as well as exploring new markets.

Simplifying the primary objective of this MOU, Mr. Debarshi Dutta, Co-founder & CEO, Ayekart said, “We at Ayekart believe in technological advancement of agricultural produce through digitizing farmer’s productivity with various advance machines and introducing partnership opportunities with distributors, wholesalers, stakeholders, etc. It is one of our key mottos to digitize the food and agri value chain of India. To benefit farmer communities, we are also trying to procure funding through CSR, NGO’s and government bodies to help boost their productivity and enhance their business.”

Government bodies like NABARD has created the Farm Sector Promotion Fund to incubate innovations and diffusion of technologies in the realm of agriculture and allied sectors to benefit vulnerable sectors of farmers. These funding from government, CSR, NGO’s will help benefiting the farmer. Various partnership opportunities and advancement in technology helps boosting productivity and income of the famer communities of India.

Adding to Mr. Dutta’s statement, Santosh Kumar, Co-Founder & Head Operations, Distinct Horizon, said, “Our technologies can revolutionize the agriculture sector both in terms of productivity and income increase while at the same time significantly reduce chemical input and costs of production towards massive climate change mitigation and a healthier soil. It is our pleasure to work alongside an entity like Ayekart which is committed to scale up such technologies.”

Advancement in machinery have expanded the scale, speed, and productivity of farm equipment, leading to more efficient cultivation of more land. These advanced devices and precision agriculture allow farmer’s businesses to be more profitable, efficient, safer, and more environmentally friendly. Ayekart will create an end-to-end solution by digitizing, handholding and providing funding to these farmer communities.

The post Fintech startup Ayekart joins hands with Agritech Distinct Horizon to up-skill productivity of farmers and create a sustainable future appeared first on Startagist.

CASHe stated that it has witnessed 237% Y-o-Y growth in loans disbursed which stood at 4.3 lakh in FY21-22 vis-à-vis 1.27 lakh in FY20-21.  In terms of the loan value, the company said it has disbursed loans worth Rs. 1,550 crores in FY21-22 as against Rs. 579 crores in FY20-21 thereby witnessing a 168% growth. Bengaluru, Delhi, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad and Ghaziabad were the top cities from where it witnessed maximum traction. It further stated – medical, home renovation, wedding, and education were the top reasons for which loans were availed.

CASHe’s instant credit line facility allows a user to borrow money up to Rs. 1 lakh disbursed approximately 1.96 lakh loans worth 416 crores in FY21-22 alone. While the average ticket size of the credit products across CASHe’s platform is approximately Rs. 40,000, the same is around Rs. 22,000 for its Credit Line facility.

The company’s BNPL offering which enables customers to avail of flexible, interest-free credit witnessed a 30% Y-o-Y growth. For its BNPL offering, the company has partnered with leading brands across eCommerce, mobility, fashion, and pharma such as Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra, Uber, Apollo, Urban Company, Big Basket among others.

The company which turned profitable on a month-on-month basis since November 2018, today boasts of over 10 million registered users and more than 20 million app downloads, with over 30,000 downloads and 3,000 loan applications witnessed every day. The company’s loyal customer base of over 5,00,000 comprises over 75% repeat users.

Speaking on the announcement, Mr. Joginder Rana, Vice – Chairman & M.D, CASHe, said, “Crossing the 4k crores mark is a significant milestone on our roadmap for CASHe Vision 3.0 and testifies our commitment towards extending easy and affordable credit to young India. We have consistently clocked over 10% M-o-M growth in loan disbursals and are expecting to close FY22-23 with disbursals worth over Rs. 3,600 crores. With innovation and technology at the core of what we do, we have built CASHe into a one-stop platform offering the full gamut of financial services for the new-age Indian. Today through its modern credit infrastructure platform, CASHe is making responsible and instant credit accessible to millions of young Indians, thereby transforming the credit landscape of India, whilst setting new benchmarks in customer satisfaction and operational standards.”

The company recently announced its foray into the wealth management space with the acquisition of Sqrrl, a Gurgaon-based WealthTech platform, in an all-cash deal (Subject to regulatory approvals). The strategic buy-out broadens CASHe’s millennial-focused credit-led product and services suite to now cover their investment and wealth management needs as well. As part of its value-added services, the company further stated that it now assists its customers with attractive home loan offers through its home loan referral program. It has also tied up with Zopper to offer its customers a unique yearly subscription based CASHe Device Care plan which enables users to repair their home appliances.

CASHe’s unique proposition lies in its proprietary AI-based algorithm platform – Social Loan Quotient (SLQ). SLQ assesses the risk of a borrower based on the user’s social and mobile data footprints thereby providing credit to those that don’t qualify for credit from conventional lending. Besides offering faster credit decisions, SLQ has enabled CASHe to seamlessly capture untapped markets among the financially excluded sections of society. Its affordable interest rates, instant processing, flexible repayment options make it a preferred credit platform for salaried professionals.

The post CASHe crosses Rs. 4000 crores in loan disbursals; Targets Rs. 3600 crores of new disbursals in FY 22-23 appeared first on Startagist.