Gurjodhpal Singh, CEO at Tide India, talks about creating something new for Indian SMEs and helping them digitize and use intuitive technology to help them save time (and money) on the running of their businesses. He also explains the reason UK fintech Tide selecting India as first market for international expansion. Gurjodh’s considerable experience in fintech sector and supporting Indian SMEs over many years, and is now at the helm of Tide in India, to establish the business in the Indian market.
Tide choses India as their first international market-
Tide is the largest digital business banking challenger in the UK, with close to 6% market share, Tide believes it is the right time to expand internationally. Tide announced, in early 2021, of having selected India as its first international market, with ambition to provide innovative financial and administrative services for quickly digitising SMEs in India. India emerged as a clear front-runner for numerous reasons.
- Entrepreneurialism is central to India’s culture, the country is home to almost 10% of global SMEs, making it one of the biggest markets for Tide.
- The Government’s digitisation efforts and high smartphone penetration has led to large scale digital adoption.
- India has one of the most conducive geopolitical and investment environments that makes it an attractive market for Tide.
- Moreover, the recent and continuing government efforts to formalise and digitise the economy have led to a plethora of opportunities for fintechs like Tide.
- Tide’s executive team has experience in establishing and growing businesses in India.
Tide’s market share-
Tide is committed to serving the 64-million and growing Indian SME sector and will help unleash the true potential of Indian small businesses. Tide plans to acquire 25,000 members (SMEs) in the next financial year and scale up to two million members in the next five years.
India emerges to be the most lucrative markets for global Fintechs -
When it comes to global Fintechs, India has emerged as a popular choice among many, because of the digital push that has led to high digital adoption among consumers as well as SMEs.
- The Indian economy is becoming more globalised
- It’s not a ‘winner takes it all’ market - the fact there are multiple successful Fintech businesses focussing on various consumer segments and addressing perse pain points proves that it’s a huge market.
- The Aadhaar revolution has been a catalyst for digitisation in the regulatory arena.
- India boasts of amazing collaboration opportunities.
- The present government’s policies encourage informal businesses to move towards formalisation.
- The availability of world class technology, product and service talent is encouraging several players to set-up tech and service centres in the country.
Tide building 'one business banking platform' -
As a digital banking challenger in the UK, in India as well, Tide will follow the One-Platform Concept - Tide’s agile structure and globally unified technology means that the business financial platform can be adapted and integrated with local product service partners to suit the specific needs of SMEs in each market. Tide will partner with the best product players in the market to deliver seamless service to its members.
Strategies of Tide digitizing SME’s in India and bridging the credit gap –
The needs of SMEs globally are largely universal, with the time wasted on banking and admin being a key issue. As a Fintech, Tide aims to bring convenience and help SMEs get easy access to products like bank accounts, cards, securing working capital, managing cash flow, etc. Being a digital-only platform, we look to offer SMEs with tailor-made products and solutions that help create a digitised credit history for them. We could also act as aggregators to access and analyse digitally-available data and thus customise lending solutions and connect customers (SMEs) to suitable lenders.
Tide’s focus on serving the unregistered and unorganized SME sector in India -
Tide is committed to serving the 64-million and growing Indian SME sector and will help unleash the true potential of Indian small businesses. Not only supporting the organised SME sector, Tide will also focus on serving the unregistered and unorganised sector, helping small businesses digitise and bring them into the mainstream.
Tide’s GDC global operations -
Tide operates three GDCs as of now, including the one in Hyderabad, there’s one in London and one in Sofia. Tide’s GDC in Hyderabad has a global mandate, although it currently serves the UK and India markets, we plan to expand to multiple countries in future.
Core focus areas of Tide’s GDC in Hyderabad -
Core Areas: Engineering focus on Data Science, Front end, microservices, Dev Ops. At the GDC Hyderabad, we are building the One Platform which will be configurable for multiple countries. We use AI and advanced data analytics to help us in risk management, marketing and product development among others.
Tide near future expansion plans include-
Tide has a track record of strong and sustained growth in the UK and we hope to continue the same in India. Tide has a strong mission, to help save small business owners time (and money), with a team that believes in this passionately and works towards an exciting future ahead.