Fintech On Cloud: Fintechs’ Playbook To Scale Up Securely

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Inc42 and Google Cloud recently held a roundtable titled Fintech On Cloud: Fintechs’ Playbook To Scale Up Securely, exploring many critical areas such as: 

• How fintech startups can leverage cloud technology to drive business transformation across different segments and scale up
• Data protection with multilayered security: How fintech startups can collect and analyse user data at scale while remaining secure and reducing cost
• Tracking critical innovations like the Zero Trust model and cloud AI-ML 

Moderated by Dhaval Jariwala, director of advisory and payments transformation at PwC, the discussion included Karan Mehta, founder and CTO of Kissht and Ring; Anil Sinha, CTO of EarlySalary; Vivek Pandey, VP of engineering at Simpl; Amod Kulkarni, VP of engineering at EnKash; and Rohit Verma, principal architect of financial services at Google Cloud.

How Cloud Technology Is Shaping The Future Of Fintech Startups

Picture this. You wake up as the alarm blares and suddenly realise that today is the last day to pay your bills. But you don’t panic, as all you need to do is whip out your smartphone and pay your bills with a few clicks.

This is the kind of innovation and seamless customer experience that fintech companies bring to the table. Today, we have fintech startups enabling an entire bouquet of services, from instant loan approval, buying insurance and making payments to wealth management and more, as they leverage the cloud technology to work faster, better and smarter.

Indeed, cloud-enabled fintech startups will have the best chance to capitalise on the massive market opportunity, set to hit $1.3 Tn by 2025, according to an Inc42 report. 

But what makes cloud computing so alluring to fintech startups? 

Leveraging the cloud has significantly reduced the need for big teams and speeded up the time to market. For instance, Kissht, a cloud-first lending tech startup with an engineering team of just 70 people, supports a customer base of nearly 22 Mn, something unheard of 10 years ago.

“The kind of liberation I have experienced as a CTO is amazing. Thanks to the cloud, the lead time to add another instance to my array is two to three minutes against the lead time of six weeks when ordering a server from Dell,” said Karan Mehta.

Harnessing consumer data is crucial for any startup looking to scale, and cloud tech helps in not just securely storing a vast amount of data but also analysing it in real time with AI-ML.

“We do almost 92% of our (loan) underwriting in real time with AI-ML enabling real-time KYC validation,” said Anil Sinha of EarlySalary, a one-stop solution for all instant cash needs.

However, scalability and security must go hand-in-hand, said Amod Kulkarni, VP of engineering at EnKash. According to him, cloud tech addresses just that and enables new-age companies to shift to continuous compliance rather than the earlier goal of having to pass an annual audit.

With the venture capital inflow dwindling and startup funding falling 17% YoY in the first eight months of 2022, startups are now focussing more on capital-efficient growth.

“For example, cloud analytics can help an ecommerce platform decide which users should be provided incentives to make a difference and convert them. This will help spend the marketing dollars more efficiently and achieve capital-efficient growth,” said Vivek Pandey of Simpl, a BNPL (buy now pay later) fintech.

Usually, good things do not come cheap. But Rohit Verma of Google Cloud pointed out why leveraging the cloud technology has an added advantage – it does not require large capex upfront in the investment cycle. Instead, a startup can spread the costs over months, using a pay-as-you-go model.

In this era of rapid tech transformation, fintech startups must adapt or risk becoming irrelevant very soon. As cloud computing emerges as one of the biggest drivers of innovation, India’s thriving fintech ecosystem, with its 22 unicorns and 33 soonicorns, should explore its scalability, security and convenience for sustainable growth.