Fintech startups are on a roll. Here’s how to get a foot in the door at one.

If 2020 belonged to edtech, 2021 will be remembered for the stupendous rise of fintech startups in the country.?

Sample this: Of the 41 startups that became unicorns this year, nine are fintechs. (11, if you count cryptocurrency firms.)

Investor interest in the space is at an all-time high. India’s fintech startups attracted $2 billion in investment in the first half of 2021 (compared to $2.7 billion in all of 2020), according to a KPMG report.

That momentum continued into the next quarter, with startups in the space mopping up?$1.93 billion across 66 deals, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence.

Behind this stratospheric growth is a heady mix of enablers: rising digital payments, increasing smartphone penetration and a boom in entrepreneurship.

The next wave of growth, experts say, is likely to come from partnerships with traditional banking, insurance, and retail sectors.

Here are some key trends in the space worth keeping an eye out for.

The race to create a super app

From B2C payments firms like Paytm and MobiKwik to enterprise payments companies like Razorpay and PineLabs to tech giants like Google, everyone wants to cast a wide net.

For example, Paytm – which has been in the news for its lacklustre IPO – is now present across seven segments including investing, equity broking, insurance, merchant lending, ecommerce and travel. Rival PhonePe has a presence in e-commerce, investing, and insurance.

This phenomenon is driven by investor push for profitability and the opportunity to monetise the data and user base by cross-selling other financial products and services, an EY report said.

Buy Now Pay Later is here to stay – and grow

Millions of Indians are opting for interest-free credit on online platforms – a trend facilitated by credit card challengers like Simpl, Zest Money and Lazypay.

The biggest beneficiaries are millennials — consumption-driven and credit-starved, and on the lookout for low-friction products.

Redseer estimates India's BNPL market to hit $45-50 billion by 2026, up from $3-3.5 billion currently. The number of BNPL users may rise to 80-100 million by then, up from 10-15 million now.

Small businesses: The new battleground

A wave of entrepreneurship is sweeping across the country, creating several opportunities for finetch players.

Harshil Mathur, co-founder and CEO of Razorpay, told me that he has seen a significant uptick in the proportion of revenues from small businesses. “A majority of our revenues and volumes used to come from mid-market enterprise … but a lot of small businesses who never considered online payments started to go online during the pandemic. Now, the majority of our revenues and volumes come from SMEs,” he explains.

As a result, most of Razorpay’s recent launches have been focused on SMEs whether it’s payments, banking or lending.

Everything from payroll to taxation to compliance, there's a lot of friction that exists. And if you're able to remove that friction, it will be of tremendous benefit to entrepreneurs, Shashank Kumar, co-founder and CTO of Razorpay, chimes in.

Looking to make a career at fintech startups? Here’s what you need in terms of skills and knowledge.

Technical skills

• Blockchain and distributed ledger systems
• Data science
• Programming skills (Java, JavaScript, C++, C#, Python and SQL)
• Machine learning, artificial intelligence, deep learning
• Cybersecurity
• Digital marketing

"In the last few years, we have seen DevOps and data engineering becoming really important and commanding a significant premium. In the next five years, one area where we see a lot of demand is around blockchain development, expertise in the crypto economy and crypto engineering," Razorpay’s Kumar tells me.

Soft skills

• People skills
• Creativity and problem-solving
• Adaptability and Flexibility

Mindset and attitude

On this front, the one common answer I got from some fintech founders was passion and motivation. “Is there some project outside of their regular academic or work life that the candidate is passionate about? ?Are there some engineering topics which keep them awake at night, which they want to learn about more?” Razorpay’s Kumar tells me.

And that’s natural given the ever-evolving state of financial technologies.

“The one non-negotiable quality I look for in job candidates is a curiosity because that's what drives us forward,” says Lalit Keshre, co-founder and CEO of Groww.

Last, strong communication skills with internal and external stakeholders matter. “If they're able to empathise and relate with the challenges a customer is facing, they are usually able to come up with more innovative and creative solutions,” Kumar adds. ?