We recently interacted with Pramod Kathuria, Founder & CEO, Easiloan, and asked him about the vision and future plans regarding his fintech startup.
Here are the highlights from this interesting interview:
What was your Eureka moment and how did you come up with the concept? How is the startup assisting in these COVID times, and how is it overcoming the obstacles? What has been the product’s evolution and growth?
Having a long-standing track record of being a part of the home buying and home loan ecosystem, we were aware of the challenges that make the entire process tedious and full of hassles. These obstacles aggravate home buyers and adversely affect developers and lenders.
Having said that, in the last decade, technological advancements have been taking over BFSI (Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance Sector). Moreover, the wave of digital lending in other loan segments such as personal loan, auto loan, BNPL, etc. boosted by the pandemic brought restrictions, paved the way for a revolution in the home loan category.
In 2020, the onset of the pandemic shifted consumer behaviour across products and services. We witnessed profound changes in these services that converted from digital-first to full-stack. At the same time, RBI also started easing regulations around digital lending to maintain ‘business as usual’. Initiatives like video-KYC, account aggregator framework, and all-time low-interest rates were ample signs for us to leap into this complicated but highly rewarding domain of digital home loans.
At Easiloan, our product and service are an ideal plug for a home buyer.. The customer journey enables them to complete their home loan application digitally on a single integrated platform–Easiloan.
Today, we are providing all-digital and end-to-end home loan services to consumers and resolving sales-and cashflows challenges faced by real-estate developers.
We also have a digital partner module for our developer and other channel partners, that acts like a CRM for them, wherein they can upload their booked customer data and get visibility on individual loan application status of their customers.
How did you assemble the core team (co-founders and early workers) – who did you meet and how did everyone get on board with the concept?
Though I began this journey single-handedly, soon I realised we needed a quality second-in-line asset to further propel this idea’s growth. Our initial quest was to have an excellent product mind to gain conviction in the idea. Gradually, we met a home of talents that specialises in product and tech development with remarkable records of delivering excellent online solutions.
A similar challenge was to onboard experienced folks in the sales and business development domain. Here, we took the route of going only for the experience. We brought those people onboard who knew home buying and home loans like the back of their hands.
As the next step, we knew an excellent product would require the right hands to take it to the mainstream ecosystem. These days, veterans in BFSI understand that fintech is the end-game. They are also keen to come onboard and build the future solutions of BFSI. This is how we solved the BD and operations piece of our puzzle. Today, we have the best set of people handling these crucial functions for Easiloan.
Apart from this, I had this conviction, industry experience or not, people doing excellent work in any domain and hungry for growth will always add tremendous value to a company’s success. So, we intentionally went cross-industry, narrated our story and got them (strategist, HRs etc.) to join our rocketship.
At present, our team size has grown to more than 55 talented individuals and 7 assets in leadership positions. I am proud to share that the human resources here are probably the best second-in-line one can find in a company at our stage.
What has been the revenue, traction, and growth since the company’s inception?
Easiloan started operating in July 2021, and the headquarter was set up in Mumbai. Since then, we have logged in more than 15,00 home loan applications in Mumbai, Pune and Bengaluru. These are done digitally with an over 90% of success rate (successful closure with the lender).
So far, we have already processed home loans above the INR 500 crore mark. Moreover, we have partnered with more than 15 leading banks and Housing Finance Companies (HFCs). Easiloan also boasts exclusive partnerships with 70 developers across three major cities.
What is it about you that distinguishes you from your competitors? Who are your most important clients?
We have exclusive partnerships with 70 developers across three cities. It enables us to provide better and more efficient services to home buyers. Similarly, the swiftness brought in by our digital platform ensures a high-NPS experience for home buyers. Our unified AI based platform ensures minimum drop-offs in the customer journey. Our AI based match-making engine enables the customer to select the lender of their choice, further supported by our credit engine that issues on the spot pre-sanction letter.
How does the product work? How did you build the product, manufacturing, raw materials etc.?
Easiloan aims to resolve the current issues in the system by aggregating demand and managing supply through the integration of their platform with lending partners. By moving the entire process of documentation and credit appraisal online, Easiloan is building an extremely deep understanding of banks’ lending criteria, ensuring API integration with banks, and developing an AI based match-making engine that empowers home buyers to choose the optimal home loan & get faster sanctions
At Easiloan, our Loan Offers Recommendation Engine uses an early-stage AI model to find the best possible lender suited to the customer profile from a list of lending options. Our Credit engine collects, analyses and verifies customer’s personal and financial data to issue real time pre-sanction, post which the application is passed on to the respective lender.
Simultaneously, we also have a similar tool that allows developers and channel partners to access real-time visibility of sales success and incoming cash flow.