Mission-driven Finance -The future the world needs

The Money 2.0 Conference’s Winter Edition Dubai, 2022 welcomed Amit Bendale, as a speaker where he was also awarded the ‘Outstanding Leadership Award’ at the InterContinental Dubai Festival City, UAE, on December 16–18, 2022.

Amit Bendale is Co-founder & SVP Data Sciences at Bright Money with over 10 years of experience in data science and analytics. He builds aspects of cashflow modeling, credit card management-related auto-savings and auto-allocation algorithms, and credit risk forecasting systems, all of which power Bright’s core products. He has filed 4 patents and written 5 research papers on pattern recognition & NLP models. All of these, along with many more achievements have brought him this laurel.?

A little about the Money 2.0 Conference

Money 2.0 Conference brings together experts from the financial services and legal arenas. The speakers at the conference talk about topics such as scam/fraud prevention in fintech, investing in the stock market, paying off debt, and understanding tax laws.?

This conference hosted thought leaders from corporate law and finance to offer insights into everything, from risk management to IPO structuring. With over 300+ attendees and 100+ leaders.?

Amit Bendale was part of a panel of industry experts which included Ish Anand , CEO & Country Manager, Global Wealth Group as well as Majid Altunisi. CFC?, CPFAcct, ChFM?, CWM? , CFO, National Bank of Kuwait.

Why Innovation is the key to Mission-driven Finance

Mission-driven finance is different from the usual Fintech model. Anything that is mission-driven has a social impact and social cause attached to it. The most important part of this is to ensure you’re having a positive impact on society.?

After the arrival of the Covid-19 pandemic, it has become imperative for Governments, institutions and companies to make social impact a key aspect of their mission. The Government also now insists that a part of the industry’s budget is allocated to CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility). There are now penalties in many countries if a portion of your budget is not allocated to this cause. Mission-driven activity is under the spotlight along with the need for inclusivity.?

Finance or any other activity, as long as it is mission-driven, retains value in the eyes of the law and of the people.?

Working with Indian & US Markets - Amit’s POV

Amit has worked in both the Indian and American markets. With understanding of his home-country, India, which is in the news a lot today for its Fintech developments which consist of a large number of very heavy, path-breaking initiatives, Amit shared his perspective on the topic at hand.?

He acknowledged that the bottom segment in society needs initiative and attention. The benefits of Mission-driven finance must percolate to the bottom part of the social pyramid, only then would society as a whole benefit.?

Mission-driven finance has a lot to do with impacting the individual first before impacting society at large. Amit talked about the impact Bright is making by getting people out of debt along with helping people improve bad credit scores will help them with a chance to get better loans and financial services in the future.?

These priorities can be different for different cultural settings, but essentially, everyone wants to build wealth and get out of debt. All people have financial goals for themselves. When you are mission-driven, you care more about impact than about products.?

Amit suggests you think backwards. You first identify your mission and then build products. The requirements to be mission-driven are to pivot your products at regular intervals, if they are not having the impact you had envisioned and to take innovation in your leap because without that, the desired impact would be hard to achieve.?

"If it were that easy, everybody would be doing it."?

Amit talks about hyper personalization. At the end of the day, every consumer is different. Either you or your machines have to understand their unique situations. Your consumers have to be understood as people, not as mere metrics.?

“Leverage the power of A.I. Start with intelligent automation at all layers. Then you get into machine learning and then artificial intelligence”, says Amit.?

One of the biggest innovations in India has been UPI, which has successfully reached the grassroots level. It is a seamless payment experience for people from all walks of life. Completely technology-driven, transactions being complete in seconds, negligible failures and a wide-adoption throughout the country. Something you don’t see quite yet at this level in the US.

The Government has adapted and understood the need of this technology, other companies have built on it.?

Amit feels it important to keep Indian progress in mind as Bright is building technology for the US market from India. This is the first company to be doing this. There is a lot of tech talent coming out of India. To provide for a geography, you have to understand the cultural element of that region. May it be the one you’re building in or the one you’re building for, as with Bright.?

Debt is a big issue in the US. Spiraling into huge debt is common there because of poorly managed finances. Credit card debt especially, is very prominent. Credit card is a great invention, provided you manage it properly. It can benefit you a lot, but the fine line between boon and bane is so very thin.

Good debt-management tools, which are based on the latest technology, are the need of the hour. It’s time to move away from recommendations to automation. In financial planning, you might give the consumer several recommendations. But life is hectic, consumers may lack financial knowledge or the power of decision making. That’s where you come in to make life easy.?

Do the hard work for the consumer, understand their needs and provide the best possible solution to their problems. Setting the right expectations and using A.I as an informed decision system is what works to help your consumer benefit the most from what you have to offer.?

In Conclusion

The issue with Fintech till now has been the acquisition of customers, which is easy for banks but Fintechs struggle with this. Mainly because of technological or marketing reasons. That is solvable if it is data-driven. If you use your data well, acquiring customers becomes simpler.?

Imagine getting a loan from a bank, a lot of time spent, so much paperwork, and need for collateral. Post that, the bank will evaluate whether or not you are even eligible for the loan. It’s a safe play. Not as risky.?

Fintechs now are innovating into the not-so-obvious users. Being more flexible with defining the lendable users by introducing more nuances in criteria, making financial assistance more accessible for everyone. That’s what Bright does, and this happens within minutes once enrolled on the app. Users are aware of where they stand.?

The role of Fintechs is to change as per society’s needs. This means getting non-traditional with their approach and proving the success of their initiative. A good balance between the traditional and the non-traditional would be the best case scenario to see real change happening.?

- Vaishnavi A B

HR Generalist, Bright Money