We are revolutionising the way financial transactions are optimised: M2P Fintech’s Prabhu Rangarajan

New Delhi, Feb 5 (PTI) Digital rupee, robo advisors, personalised banking, data analytics regtech (regulatory technology) are among the mega trends reshaping the fintech sector in the post pandemic era, says M2P Fintech Co-Founder Prabhu Rangarajan.

“When it comes to our products, incorporating the latest yet relevant and scalable technology is at the heart of everything we do,” Rangarajan told PTI about the acquisitive company which fuels the digital ambitions of banks, lenders, fintechs and other financial services players.

The company, he said, is not just growing but “revolutionising the way financial transactions are understood and optimised”. It powers a large percentage of fintech transactions in India with a client base that spans more than 300 banks, 800 fintechs and over 100 NBFCs (non banking financial company). The company has a direct presence in 27 markets globally – a presence it is keen to steadily expand.

The venture backed by marquee investors like Tiger Global Management and Omidyar Network has achieved ‘break-even’ in 2023, and expects to continue fund-raising to accelerate ambitions across international markets and to widen product suite, Rangarajan said.

The Chennai-based M2P Fintech sees Amazon Web Services (AWS) as more than a service provider, much like a partner in the mission to build sustainable financial infrastructure.

Excerpts from the interview:

Q: What was the vision of the founders for M2P Fintech?

A: One of the biggest opportunities we saw before kickstarting M2P Fintech was the gap between a bank’s tech offering and what was needed in the market by brands to cater to their customers. Recognising this gap, we began our journey to enable banks to become nimbler and help them offer APIs (application programming interface) to set brands on their product journey.

Moving forward, we built exhaustive, in-house tech capabilities, diversified our product offering across segments. We work with banks, NBFCs, financial institutions to digitise their tech layer across banking, lending and payments landscapes and, on the other end, we work with consumer internet and large tech companies across verticals ranging from food tech, regtech, travel and more.

Today, M2P Fintech stands at the threshold of innovation and collaboration. We have got a client base that spans over 300 plus banks, 100 plus NBFCs, and more than 800 fintechs. We power a large percentage of fintech transactions in India and have a direct presence in 27 markets worldwide. It has been an incredible journey, and the best part is we’re just getting started.

Q: What are the broad trends defining the fintech industry?

A: The post pandemic era is truly the digital era with transformations across industries at a rapid pace and fintech is no different. Be it the digital rupee, robo advisors, personalised banking, data analytics or regtech, several trends are reshaping our industry.

When it comes to our products, incorporating the latest yet relevant and scalable technology is at the heart of everything we do. It is no one product but a seamless integration wherever possible. With our recent acquisition Goals 101, a data and AI ML (artificial intelligence, machine learning) led organisation, we are looking forward to leveraging their tech capabilities in the most prominent areas like customer service, product and portfolio management, risk, and compliance.

Q: What are M2P Fintech’s expansion plans?

A: Today, we have a presence in 27 global markets, and we look at steadily expanding this further.

We are looking at these markets not just as new territories, but as lands of immense possibility where we can bring our innovative digital banking solutions and really make a difference.

There’s continuous demand from our banking clients in these international geographies. It is not just about expanding our footprint; it is about deepening our relationships with existing clients and reaching new ones. If you look at Amazon, they began their journey in the US but expanded globally with deep understanding of commerce in each of the markets they’re present in. Drawing inspiration from them, we are building new capabilities and adding local flavours in every market catering to their custom needs and regulations.

We believe in going hyper local wherever we are present. In short – we are not just growing; we are revolutionising the way financial transactions are understood and optimised.

Q: What are M2P Fintech’s future plans on fund-raising?

A: We have successfully raised more than USD 110 million with marquee investors such as Insight Partners, Tiger Global Management, Beenext, Omidyar Network, Flourish Ventures, Visa, MUFG, 8i Ventures and Better Capital.

M2P has achieved break-even in 2023, we expect to continue fund-raising to accelerate our ambitions across international markets, expand to newer markets and to widen our product suite which complements the existing products and supports customer acquisition.

Q: What is the outlook for 2024 when it comes to demand for your offerings?

A: A major chunk of the post pandemic era were the significant build-years’ at M2P where we built and acquired several products and also focused on tweaking them at product and GTM (go to market) levels responding to market feedback.

Last year was a watershed one for M2P. We successfully launched products that were of crucial importance to major banks in India, Middle East and North Africa, ASEAN and secured valuable contracts.

Boosting our GTM machine with large banks and the financial stability of breaking even is setting the stage up for steady growth in 2024.

We’re one of the only global players with a flexible cloud native stack that makes deployment fast and flexible, the product breadth and the trust of having deployed at large-scale across products. To a digitally ambitious bank or lender, the opportunity to have their entire digital transformation done under one umbrella while being de-risked at the levels of flexibility, timeliness and stability by deploying with M2P is one of the strongest themes we see driving our growth in the near future.

Q: What did cloud technology allow you to do that you couldn’t do before? What benefits have you experienced running on AWS?

A: AWS has been a game-changer for several product companies and we’re no different. AWS as a cloud service provider has helped us overcome key operational challenges like scalability, flexibility, and security. AWS’ advanced computing capabilities have enabled us to automate operations efficiently, process transactions faster, and handle complex data with ease.

When large companies were focused on virtualisation, AWS was the only one that took a product approach to cloud, similarly we’re building a financial services cloud drawing inspiration from them.

For us at M2P, AWS is more than a service provider – they are a partner in our mission to build sustainable financial infrastructure.

(This story has been produced by PTI in collaboration with Amazon Web Services).