UAE-Based ICC Fintech To Invest $30 Mn To Kickstart India Ops

UAE-based fintech solutions provider, ICC Fintech has drawn up a $30 Mn investment plan to start its India operations by early next financial year.

“We had pre-A and B series funding earlier, with active participation from HNIs. We will go live in Q1 next year for which we already have the funds,” ICC Fintech founder & CEO Amit Narang told Inc42.

Founded in 2019, ICC Fintech is present in most parts of the Middle East, particularly in larger markets such as the UAE and Saudi Arabia. It has operations in Egypt and Qatar as well, while its India office in Noida, Uttar Pradesh takes care of everything around tech. Expectedly, the lion’s share of revenue comes from the Middle East. It raked in a revenue of INR 65 Cr in the year 2021.

Narang said India is more like a development centre, a hub for talent and tech development, for ICC Fintech. 

No One Wants To Miss Out On India Story

The Indian fintech market is one of the fastest-growing globally, estimated to reach $1.3 Tn by 2025, and ICC Fintech does not want to miss out on the India story. However, unlike domestic fintech startups, ICC Fintech’s focus is on non-resident Indians (NRIs).

“We are now headed towards setting up a financial technology company in India, based out of Mumbai,” Narang said.

When asked whether ICC Fintech’s entry in the crowded Indian fintech market is a bit too late, Narang said, “We are getting into a niche space. We are focusing on a non-resident Indian base (NRIs) and none of the Indian fintech companies is driving NRIs. They’re just driving domestic.”

He said ICC Fintech is building a “unique and niche” platform for NRIs to meet their fintech requirements in India.

Targeting 18 Mn Customers In 3 Years

One of the services that ICC Fintech would offer on its platform when it goes live is gift cards. “If you look around today, there’s not a single platform catering to NRIs, enabling them to give gifts in India.”

The fintech startup has inked a joint venture with a public sector bank in India.

“We’ll be opening accounts, fixed deposits, NRI accounts, etc. We’ll be providing services like paying for your utility bills in India, mobile bills, etc.,” Narang said.

Other lucrative services for NRIs that ICC Fintech has identified include healthcare services. It has tied up with hospitals in India in this regard. Property management is another service that NRIs need in India. ICC Fintech will also have solutions for providing education services for kids who want to come to India for education.

The company plans to target students going abroad from India for studies. Talking about the customer acquisition strategy, Narang said, “We have a strategy around B2C, which will be largely driven by social media and influencers and, of course, digital marketing. We are targeting 18 Mn unique customers over the next three years,” he said.

ICC Fintech closely works with three B2B partners, who work with NRIs on their own. It includes a large company in the UK which caters to around 80,000 students a year who come from India to enrol in various universities.

“So, we have a possible opportunity of being able to reach out to 80,000 students through that route. We are working with two more companies who already cater to NRIs in some way or the other but not in our space. One of them is in the travel space. So, yes, we are looking at a B2B too,” Narang further explained.

The remittance space, however, is not a focus area for ICC Fintech in the immediate future.

How ICC Earned Its Stripes As A Fintech Company

ICC Fintech works with the largest banking and merchant institutions in the Middle East. 

The fintech startup counts Commercial Bank of Dubai, Dubai Islamic Bank, Ajman Bank, Sharjah Islamic Bank, Doha Bank, among others, in its banking clientele.

ICC Fintech’s focus is on reward management and loyalty management services.

“What we do is we work with data. We get spending data on a daily basis. We work with almost 10 Mn transactions a day. We convert that data, using algorithms, into reward points,” Narang said.

He said ICC Fintech is one of largest fintech companies in the Middle East. “We have onboarded close to 5 Mn consumers in the Middle East. In the UAE, we have almost 60% of the targetable cardholder population enabled on our books. We have a large, large play in terms of the number of consumers who are onboarded on our platforms, the number of transactions we service every day,” Narang said.

ICC Fintech has $70 Mn unutilised reward points in its systems at any point in time, Narang noted.

The Middle East Is Way Behind India In Fintech

The fintech story in the Middle East is very different from that in India. It is a volume play in India, Narang said, adding that the regulator (the Reserve Bank of India) is supportive in terms of what can be done in the space.

According to him, the regulatory environment in the Middle East is neither tight nor liberal. “It falls into a category where these countries have to come up the curve. They have not got into the journey as fast as other countries are getting into the journey in terms of opening up…so it’s like they are five years late. They’re running five years behind,” Narang said.

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