Digitap to reach consumers worldwide and aim to reach an ARR of USD 20-25 million in the next five years

In this exclusive interview, Nageen Kommu, Founder & CEO, Digitap shares the journey of the brand and what unique it offers to its clientele. He shares an insight on how AI/ML can be leveraged in almost all the solutions provided by Digitap, whether it is in assisting digital customer onboarding or analysing the various data sources. Lastly, he highlights the way forward for the BFSI sector and sheds light on the company’s plans and priorities for 2022-23.

• Kindly share the journey of Digitap since its inception and the USP offered to the clientele.

While working at Dribl (a start-up that I co-founded), I became interested in AI/ML technologies and their ability to analyze enormous amounts of data in order to make intelligent decisions. So, I started exploring use cases that called for the deployment of these technologies. After doing extensive research, I was able to concentrate on the fintech industry because I felt that there was a void that these technologies could easily fill.

Digitap initially focused on digital customer onboarding solutions, and later, started developing several complex alternate data-based credit underwriting solutions using various data sources such as bank statements, telecom, e-commerce, device data, et al. It is basically an early-stage tech start-up dedicated to developing cutting-edge AI, ML, and compliance-related digital solutions for organizations in the BFSI industry. We assist BFSI firms to employ AI/ML-powered big data to deliver a seamless and fully compliant client experience. This helps companies in both improving their risk management as well as reducing fraud.

• Please brief us about the clients and the products/services/solutions you provide to them.

Digitap provides solutions to companies in the BFSI sector in India. Most of the clients are fintechs or large NBFCs operating in the lending space. Some of the marquee clients that we work with are Incred, MAS financials, Northern Arc, NAVI Finserv, Kreditbee, Bharatpe etc.

The BFSI sector currently focuses primarily on Bureau data to underwrite customers. However, close to 400 million Indians lack proper access to credit because of low bureau scores. We are providing BFSI companies with alternative data sources and scoring models so they may underwrite these clients and reduce their Non Performing Assets (NPAs). We have market-leading AI-ML-based alternate data solutions to assist our clients to reduce risk and increase user life-cycle value. We look at multiple data sources including bank statements, telecom, social media, e-commerce, employment, device data, and location among others.

• Can you share details on how AI/ML is being used at Digitap? How has it been progressing? 

We use AI/ML technologies in almost of all the solutions we provide whether it be in assisting Digital customer onboarding or analyzing the various data sources and coming up with scoring models to assess the credit worthiness of a customer.

Our initial focus of AI/ML was in OCR related technologies from which we progressed to applying the technologies to crunch numerous data points that we obtain from the customer and generate scoring models for decision making on them.

• As Digitap is a listed TSP on Sahamati platform, can you elaborate on the role played by the company?

Account Aggregators (AA) are RBI-licensed NBFCs that allow customers to consent to the transfer of their financial information from one financial institution to another. As a recognized Technology Service Provider (TSP), Digitap implements the Financial Information Users (FIU) module, enables the module’s certification, and offers analytics in addition to the raw data provided by the Financial Information Provider (FIP). Since Digitap is a TSP, it can connect to all AAs. From a technical perspective, Digitap provides FIUs with end-to-end solutions, allowing them to concentrate only on the necessary paperwork. In an integrated solution module, we also provide alternatives to AA for bank statement parsing solutions using net banking and PDF upload.

• What is the roadmap of your organization in 2022 and beyond?

There is certainly a huge opportunity for a variety of data-related use cases, given the importance of data in business decision-making, especially in the BFSI industry. We are currently concentrating on expanding the data-related use cases to encompass marketing, fraud detection, and identity management in addition to credit underwriting. We are also developing a robust personal finance management solution that will help our clients better understand users and offer a mechanism for better financial management and discipline. We intend to reach consumers worldwide in addition to the Indian BFSI market. Our goal is to reach an ARR of USD 20-25 million in the next five years.