Sachin Bansal May Start A Bank To Power Fintech Biz Plans

Flipkart cofounder Sachin Bansal has been busy exploring his next entrepreneurship stint in the startup ecosystem, while also being an angel investor and mentor. One of his business interests in the fintech sector has reportedly led him to explore opening a bank from scratch.

A media report citing sources said that Sachin Bansal has been in discussions with financial experts on the potential to launch a new venture in the fintech sector. He has reportedly met a few executives at the Reserve Bank of India to figure out the regulatory needs to be eligible to start a bank.

Bansal reportedly told ET: “Given the role that financial services play in the economy, it is one of the options we are looking at, it’s a business area we are exploring. At this stage, saying anything beyond that would be inappropriate … it would also be premature to talk about the hows and whys while we are still at an exploratory stage.”

To be eligible for a banking licence, according to RBI rules, the promoters must bring in equity of at least INR 500 crore and have the experience of successfully running a business venture for at least 10 years. Sachin Bansal who recently cashed-in $1 Bn from his decade-old ecommerce startup Flipkart should not face much trouble if any when it comes  raising funds or meeting any other regulatory criteria.

The challenges Bansal would need to address to start a bank reportedly include the ability to source cheaper liabilities (deposits) and to have multiple products which will give a fee income.

In December 2018, Bansal along with his friend and cofounder Ankit Agarwal registered BAC Acquisitions Pvt Ltd in Bengaluru to develop platforms to optimise business automation and computerisation of processes across sectors.

Earlier in January 2019, Inc42 accessed BAC Acquisitions filings to highlight that the major objective of the company is “to acquire, maintain, develop, and make available information-technology-driven products for providing services of every kind including, commercial, data processing, data entry, customer relationship management, communication, data analysis, social, gaming, design, cloud computing or other services.”

Bansal recently invested $7 Mn (INR 50 Cr) in the company taking its authorised share capital to INR 7,500 Cr ($1.05Bn).

Just earlier this week, Sachin Bansal announced his $92 Mn investment in cab hailing giant Ola’s ongoing Series J round. Further, there is speculation about Bansal investing $50Mn–$100 Mn (INR 347 Cr- 695 Cr) in an electric vehicle startup Ather Energy.

As Sachin Bansal figures out his next play in the fintech sector which is expected to reach $2.4 Bn by 2020, he continues to invest in other booming startups in the ecosystem.

[The development was reported by ET.]