HDFC Bank ties up with five start-ups

HDFC Bank has shortlisted five start-ups that it will work with to strengthen their web, mobile and payment offerings. The company shortlisted five out of the 30 applications it had received in its maiden Digital Innovation Summit, it said on Thursday.

The five companies shortlisted were Senseforth Technologies, an AI customer response system, Tagnpin, a marketing and customer engagement company, Safe 2 Pay, a point of sale-free payment system, Bugclipper, in-app feedback tool and Taptis Technology, a biometric payment company.

The bank had previously tied up with the likes of Chillr, which not too long ago raised $6 million from Sequoia Capital, where it developed an ecosystem, which helped customers pay without a wallet. Nitin Chugh, country head, digital banking, said that the bank wanted to break out from the one-off ties and open the bank to new and innovative ideas.

"Currently, investment is not on the agenda and we are working out with the companies if we want an exclusive deal with them or use them as white label products," said Chugh.

All of these companies are bootstrapped and are some of them are in the process of securing Series A funding.

Senseforth Technology, a Bengaluru-based start-up, has developed a machine-learning tool to help chat with customer to solve customer queries. The platform has been developed for the web, Android and iOS. The company said they were running pilot projects with other banks as well.

"It took us a few years to develop this platform and we have started approaching investors to help us take off," said Shridhar Marri, CEO and co-founder, Senseforth. This tool will mean that banks will save costs by enabling this tool and not need human intervention at the most basic level. Senseforth is working on speech recognition as well to open the doors for implementation at the IVR level too.

Tagnpin, a start-up from Gurgaon, is a marketing and customer engagement tool, which will help banks use customised marketing campaigns. The tool will analyze the customer data and then push products according to the profile, which the bank hopes, will increase its below the line sales, be it a credit card upgrade or loan.

Safe 2 Pay, a Mumbai-based start-up, has developed an app, which allows offline payments. The tool will possibly sit inside the existing HDFC bank app. The company, which has a history in mobile security, developed the app, which allows users to key in the amount, enter a pin and the app generates a QR code.

The code can be scanned by the merchant, who is connected to the internet and the payment is credited immediately. "It is a replacement for cash or an electronic cheque. The app is your cheque, the pin is your signature and the validation is done by the bank. Only difference here is the money is debited immediately," said Aditya Agarwal, director, Safe 2 Pay.

Bugclipper also from Mumbai has developed an in-house tool, which sends back reports to the development team about why the app crashed and describes customer behaviour on it.

Taptis Technology, from Indore, has developed a biometric point of sale machine, which is synced with Aadhar and helps customers pay without a credit card by using their fingerprint, a camera and pin-based system.

The company argued that for a small production cost, the bank could eliminate verification and fraud. The entire transactions takes seven seconds over a 2G network compared to 30 seconds at a regular POS machine.

"I understand that some of the solutions may not work. But this helps in demystifying banking and whatever is picked up by customers will be kept on," said Chugh.