The genesis of Creditas Solutions can be traced back to 2009, when Anshuman Panwar and Madan Srinivasan met each other at a stressed-assets Fund in London. They were a part of the team responsible for setting up the fund’s operations in India and the U.K.During their stint at the fund, the duo came to understand and appreciate the importance of Credit Scoring and its impact on individuals. Convinced that the concept of Credit Score improvement was ripe for launch in India, they decided to embark on their entrepreneurial journey by launching the country’s first platform for online credit score awareness and improvement.

“India is on a development march and financial inclusion is becoming a priority. While we have progressed on many indicators of financial literacy, credit score awareness is an area where we have a lot of catching up to do,” says Anshuman Panwar, Co-Founder, Creditas Solutions.

To enable this progress in Financial Literacy based on Credit Score Awareness, Creditas employs a potent combination of Data Intelligence and Digital Engagement. It has partnered with the 10 top banks and NBFCs in India,and over the last three years, enabled its partners to assist over 5 million customers on Credit Awareness and resolution. Along the way, it has been a flag-bearer for technology based intervention with delinquent customers, helping them understand the options to improve their credit score by paying past over dues and avoiding financial pitfalls in the future.

A Full Suite of Digital Product Offerings
Creditas Solutions provides a suite of Digital Platforms that ensure people improve their awareness of the financial product landscape in India, gain a better understanding of their credit report, and obtain access to finance any time at optimal rates.

Creditas founders’ business thesis is that the current system of Bank and Consumer interaction is outdated. Bank systems are optimized for transactional processes even as consumer’s are seeking engagement from their banks. Creditas’ suite of fully digital Banking solutions are based on both machine learning as well as actual human psychology and allow banks to drive

consumer behaviour based on consumers’ own revealed preferences. For example, Athena, the digital acquisition platform,is able to engage customers to reduce delinquencies. Whereas Helios, a digital customer engagement platform, incentivises customers to reveal their preferences and needs, so as to optimally cross-sell & up-sell retail products to these customers, only when they have a need. This is diametrically opposite to the traditional model, where customers may receive multiple marketing calls, which leads to Bank’s brand dilution. Finally, Zeus, which is a fully automated NPA recoveries solution, is already demonstrating tremendous uplift on Banks’ NPA portfolios.

Creditas is the tech partner for Project Akshar, a first-of-its-kind digital literacy initiative by Axis bank that helps customers build awareness of Financial Products

ClearMyDues, Creditas’ oldest product offering, aims at building consumer awareness about credit report and credit scores amongst the general populace. It is a free-to-use service for consumers, wherein they can both understand their credit scores as well have free access to credit score building tools. The Creditas algorithm identifies the exact problem area and guides the customer on the rectification process. As Anshuman says, “Creditas’ solutions are both for banks and consumers - by minimizing friction in the banking process using gamification and human psychology we allow banks and consumers to transact digitally in a manner reminiscent of personal relationship banking.”

Project Akshar: Advancing Digital Financial Literacy
Creditas is the technology partner for Project Akshar, a first of-its-kinds initiative by Axis bank in the fin-tech space. Akshar provides consumers an intelligent and gamified platform to help them improve their knowledge of Financial Products. Once logged in, the user can access their free Credit Report, engage in surveys and quizzes to find ways to improve their scores, and read articles to be more financially literate. Through this platform, Axis Bank endeavours to educate its customers on finance and ensure that they are updated with the rapidly evolving financial landscape.

“We came up with a virtual financial advisor concept that provides customers a guided path to improve their financial awareness. The advisor is powered by a learning algorithm that adapts to the customers’ awareness level and pushes content best suited to their needs. As an added incentive, customers are rewarded with

points that can be redeemed against gift vouchers, as they progress through the platform.

“We are seeing phenomenal excitement and participation from customers on the Akshar platform, which strengthens our conviction that such initiatives are the need of the hour.” mentions Madan.

The Way Forward
Growing at a tremendous rate and having partnered with the top Credit Bureaus in the country, Creditas serves marquee clients such as Axis, HDFC, ICICI, Citibank, Kotak, Yes Bank, SBI & more. The company is about 40 people strong and has two office bases in Gurgaon & Mumbai. Backed by one of the leading angel platforms, 1Crowd, Creditas hopes to provide similar kinds of services in the South east Asian markets in the near future.

“To grow faster, we need to continue to deepen our technology integrations with our bank partners – this is our competitive edge and also how we will combine technology expertise with data science to help our partner banks achieve full digitisation,” concludes Anshuman on a positive note.

Madan Srinivasan, Co-Founder

Key Management :
1. Madan Srinivasan, Co-Founder, Creditas Solutions – A graduate from ISB Hyderabad, Madan possesses an experience of over 10 years in setting up and running support operations for tech giants and financial startups. He has a razor focus on delivery & operational efficiency.

2. Anshuman Panwar, Co-Founder, Creditas Solutions – A graduate from IIT Delhi and IIM Ahmedabad, Anshuman’s role in Creditas is to build and manage client acquisitions and relationships. He holds an overall experience of over 10+ across MNC Banks, Consulting Firms and Startups.

Case Study :
Mr. Sujit Garg, a software developer who works with an MNC, was not able to get a car loan due to lack of information on options available for his specific need. Using Creditas’ Akshar portal, he was able to understand why he was running afoul of the eligibility criteria and what parameters he needed to correct on his application. He redid his paper work and re-applied. Within a week’s time, his car loan was sanctioned and he is a proud owner of a Honda City today. Creditas today is actively involved in helping customers like him to build a stress free and financially sound future.