00:00:08 Hi everyone I m Kadambari Sahu. I'm the head of design at Value Labs. Design Inspire is

00:00:14 the web series of passionate innovative and young inspiring designers. The web series

00:00:19 dive into their passion inspiration and what makes them go. It's an effort to understand

00:00:25 how they are navigating their career path and how they are investing their creative

00:00:29 energies. We believe hearing their bold moves and inspiring stories that will ignite interest

00:00:34 and inspired the next generation of budding designers across the globe. So let's go forward

00:00:39 with our guest today. Our today s guest is Dharmesh BA. Dharmesh leads the research and

00:00:43 strategy initiative at D91 labs, a user research lab the documents the financial journeys of

00:00:50 people in India. Dharmesh has also been an active contributor of design in public infrastructure

00:00:55 projects through iSpirt and also volunteers to organize DesignUp conference and IxDA Bangalore

00:01:01 meetups. So welcome Dharmesh BA. How are you doing today?

00:01:04 Doing really well. I am excited to share the presentation.

00:01:10 We are excited to move and see how you share your stories, thoughts and journey.

00:01:20 I am going to share my screen. Hey good afternoon everyone. My name is Dharmesh.Today, I'm just

00:01:27 going to talk about what is special about designing financial products especially for

00:01:33 the larger part of the country we call like the top hundred million users in India as

00:01:39 India and the last mile India is what we quote and call as Bharat. I'm going to talk about

00:01:45 what it means to design financial products for Bharat and what are kind of work that

00:01:51 I currently do and what it is important. And also last part of the talk is going to be

00:01:56 about how we take the work to the appropriate people so that we could create impact. At

00:02:02 the end of this presentation. I'm just going to leave you guys with a thought saying that

00:02:08 what kind of impact can a simple exercise like a design research could do one to the

00:02:15 ecosystem and through the ecosystem, what to do to the country right. Let me start with

00:02:20 the simplest thing saying that you know most of us would have received a phone call asking

00:02:26 you for the loan credit card, etc. Have you ever thought that you know is calling random

00:02:34 person and telling them will require asking them if you want to take a credit card or

00:02:39 loan? Is it the most effective way to actually sell the product? A loan or a credit card

00:02:44 is like a product for a bank. Imagine Amazon people do not call you asking saying that

00:02:50 hey, do you want to buy this product right. That's not the most effective way to actually

00:02:54 sell a product. But irrespective of that we still keep getting phone calls to see to ask

00:03:00 you if you want to take a loan or credit card. Let's go, let's take a step back and understand

00:03:05 why are we getting these phone calls. In fact, let me also ask another question, who is actually

00:03:10 getting these phone calls. So this is the total population of India like you know we

00:03:14 are on currently on 135 Crores people. Almost 77.7 Crores people have bank accounts like

00:03:22 this is almost around 80% of the Indian adults have bank accounts, and even half of it was

00:03:27 opened recently in the last few years after 2014. When the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan came

00:03:34 into picture where every bank was forced to open a bank account using Aadhaar. And all

00:03:40 of that these are the number of people who actually file income taxes right which is

00:03:45 roughly less than 5% of the people in India as whom we file income taxes. And these are

00:03:52 the people who actually get phone calls we might it could be quite surprising because

00:03:57 you know everybody whom we know will get this phone calls but you also know that you know

00:04:02 we meet only few people we meet people like us in our life. And only we are the kind of

00:04:09 people who get these phone calls. Now why are we getting phone calls the most interesting

00:04:16 part about people who file income taxes is the aspect that most of them are salaried

00:04:21 employees. What a salary employees mean for a bank a salaried employee means they have

00:04:29 predictable income. If this month I am getting 50,000 next month also, I'm sure that you

00:04:33 will be getting 50,000 and so on. So what this predictable salary mean. It means I able

00:04:39 to assess you better as a credit worthy person right So, which essentially means stable income

00:04:45 is a pointer for a bank to say if I give a loan to this individual they will be able

00:04:52 to repay me back because they have a steady income. I have a vision into what their future

00:04:57 is going to look like. That way, if you look at most of the financial products that we

00:05:02 use in the country. Always have a sense of periodicity associated with them. If you take

00:05:08 loans. It's called EMI if you take in mutual funds. It's called SAP which is systematic

00:05:12 investment plan every month they asked you to invest something if you look at insurance

00:05:16 it you see insurance premium being paid yearly or quarter right this all looks good, but

00:05:23 what is the problem. If you look at it the rest of the 95% of the country do not have

00:05:29 stable income. They are either small business owners, they are farmers. They are probably

00:05:34 who are laborers daily wage workers or they are people who do a part of gig economy. Let's

00:05:40 take even gig economy like you know they do not have stable income or they have an income

00:05:47 which might not be or they have a job which might not be as stable as they could be doing

00:05:52 a contract worker right now what happens with this is essentially since Financial institutions

00:05:59 do not have visibility into their particular income levels in future the products are mostly

00:06:05 not targeted for them. Which leaves with all the banks trying to find customers only within

00:06:12 the smallest pool of income tax filer s for salary income. What is the result of this

00:06:21 is, is this because you cost of acquiring a customer becomes extremely high. Like, that

00:06:27 is what they use this innovative method of actually randomly calling people and asking

00:06:31 if you want to do. When you establish such a method to actually acquire customer your

00:06:36 cost of acquisition goes high, now imagine if I have if I spend almost 1000 rupees to

00:06:44 acquire a customer the minimum loan size that they would probably you will be only one lakh

00:06:50 If I have to keep my total cost of acquisition is less than 1% right so which means I have

00:06:55 to spend 1000 rupees to acquire a customer. So the minimum loan that I could do them is

00:06:59 1 lakh. The problem was most of India probably want to load which is really small ticket

00:07:04 size 5000 rupee loan which I wanted for three months or 500 rupee loan which I wanted for

00:07:10 a week like since then this way on how the loan products are structured. Most of the

00:07:16 people are even eliminated. They don't even like qualify for that particular loan product.

00:07:20 That's the flop product design aspect. Second problem is a broken distribution network.

00:07:26 How do we form trust with the financial institutions generally we look at the ATMs, we look at

00:07:31 the branches. We say like you know my branch manager works there is someone I know there's

00:07:35 always the sense of reference there is always a sense of physical establishment which gains

00:07:40 trust. But these are all expensive methods to generate trust right so the banks are not

00:07:48 willing to probably invest like how as much as facilities as a tier 1 city in tier 3 city

00:07:54 because they know even if I establish a bank branch. I mean not able to get as much as

00:07:58 deposit I would get it by Hyderabad or Bangalore. They don't even invest that infrastructure

00:08:03 any more there these are the two challenges for India like I can take one step forward

00:08:09 and say that, you know, one of the reasons why the financial inclusion does not happen

00:08:13 is because of the two right But that's not all bad picture, but we also have something

00:08:19 good, that has been happening. The last few years one as in the recent past, almost 91%

00:08:26 of the people have gotten a unique identifier which is Aadhaar and there is also happening

00:08:31 an accelerated pace of mobile and internet penetration in India's thanks to JIO. So these

00:08:39 are the two leading parameters and we have a lagging parameter essentially the credit

00:08:43 penetration in India the insurance penetration in India mutual fund penetration in India.

00:08:49 So essentially finance needs to have a catch up with technology is the whole point. How

00:08:53 do we do? so that's where Fintech kind of comes into help say that you know hey you

00:09:00 know what with Fintech with technology. I will be able to reduce this distribution costs.

00:09:05 So if we did reduce the distribution costs to let's say from 1000 rupees to 10 rupees

00:09:09 then they can easily give you 1000 rupee low. That's the whole hypothesis right now with

00:09:15 that the problem statement that my research labs currently dealing with is how we design

00:09:21 customize financial products and you can customize financial product is If a person does not

00:09:26 have money to pay this month EMI he should be able to defer the payment for a couple

00:09:30 of months, he should not be penalized for it without penalizing, how do I bring him

00:09:35 inclusive into the system, because I know for a fact. He does not have a regular income.

00:09:38 Second, can I keep them short term loan as opposed to, forcing him to take a long term

00:09:42 loan which actually is the requirement for him. The second thing is actually the better

00:09:48 distribution network. The better distribution network what I am talking is if I have to

00:09:52 generate trust to purely digital means that way in which I'm going to design that financial

00:09:57 application needs to be a little different like how I am going to design for let's say

00:10:03 E-commerce right I give you a simple example is my most favorite example in e commerce,

00:10:07 you are Optimizing for the number of clicks. Right. So if you're saying that, you know,

00:10:12 from purchase to check out if it takes 10 clicks you're continuously optimizing saying

00:10:17 how can you do it in five seconds to do it in three clicks. But that doesn't work in

00:10:22 financial services in case if you're trying to help someone get a loan in two clicks,

00:10:26 as supposed to 10 clicks. In your indirectly somehow creating a dark pattern you will have

00:10:30 to hide information which you might not be explicitly telling them you might be helping

00:10:35 them enroll into a product which for which they might not know the consequences of Right.

00:10:40 So, that is the kind of trust network were you like to see the completely user experience

00:10:44 in a completely different manner when and essentially especially comes to financial

00:10:48 services. How do we design that better we still are not that yet. And these are the

00:10:54 two challenges which the D91 Labs deals with so when we started this lab we said that you

00:10:58 know hey you know what these are the problems that exist either we could actually build

00:11:02 it on our own or we could take this research and actually impact other creators in the

00:11:09 ecosystem. So we identify these pockets of influencers which could be people like phone

00:11:16 pay Google pay raise a paper or it could be Khata book or Ok Credit who have been doing

00:11:21 really well in a certain financial product we involve them be share research to them

00:11:27 and we tell them you know what this research can probably help you design your financial

00:11:32 products in a little different way. What is the advantage for us one this lab is situated

00:11:38 within this Fintech Company called Setu. What Setu does, Setu is essentially an API platform

00:11:44 which builds API that connects banks and Fintech and startup right so they act with the technology

00:11:51 and D91 acts as a design wing were at one place you should be able to get the case and

00:11:57 the D91 labs you should be able to get a good design principles of how to build better financial

00:12:02 products better Fintech products for Indian. This is an article. How do we accelerate financial.

00:12:08 To accelerate financial inclusion by empowering Fintech ecosystem with best design practices.

00:12:12 Now here if they have to deconstruct best design practices I could call it one set as

00:12:18 the design principles of what does good design principles for building loan mutual fund insurances.

00:12:23 And the second thing is actually building really use assets. Think of it like material

00:12:29 design, but for Fintech in India. That's the larger goal or objective that we have for

00:12:35 D91 Labs. Now to do that we said. What is the lens in which we are going to look at?

00:12:42 Right. So this is traditionally the banking journey of any individual you start with a

00:12:47 bank account, then you start using the payment instrument. The payment instruments, it could

00:12:50 be UPI, debit card, credit card or net banking, etc. Then you start moving towards investments

00:12:56 which would be a savings mutual fund goal, etc. Then you move them to credit. It could

00:13:01 be your consumer durable loans, which is the EMI Loan that you see an Amazon or Personal

00:13:07 Loan, Home Loan, Vehicle Loan. And finally, you kind of try and take insurance where you

00:13:11 secure the future for anything that is unpredictable that could happen like this could be your

00:13:17 health insurance, Vehicle Insurance etc. Now we see a person is completely financially

00:13:23 aware and also into the complete ecosystem of finance. When they have access to all these

00:13:30 products, it is not just about access but also have choices right so two things. One

00:13:35 do people have access. And do people have choices, right. So if a person has access

00:13:40 and if we have choices. Then, congratulations you are in the elite person, you are the elite

00:13:45 people of India right which most people don't have they might not have access even if they

00:13:50 have access they might have comes with some sort of consequences like say for example

00:13:54 unsecured lending you could go to money lender borrow the money. But you might have to end

00:13:58 up paying like exuberant infrastructure like people would. That's what a payday loan. A

00:14:03 payday loan is nothing but a moneylender goes to a market figures out a card vendor gives

00:14:08 100 rupees in the morning when he comes back in the evening he collects and the 5 rupees

00:14:12 might sound like a very simple thing. But if it's almost 5% interest rate and imagine

00:14:17 the 5% interest rate over a year. Your head is going to blast. To put that in perspective

00:14:23 if you are knee good walking into a HDFC bank asked for a personal loan. We both will be

00:14:29 eligible for a personal note at 11% or 13% interest rate, depending upon how good a credit

00:14:34 score is right, but all those people end up minimum paying at least anywhere between 30%

00:14:40 or 40% interest rate which is not sustainable. Right. Second, so what we did was okay now

00:14:48 I want to understand the financial journeys of people but the cash flow of how people

00:14:53 earn and how people spend is different for the different sectors. We have still not yet

00:14:58 cracked the universal code of how do I divide India but for now we have divided them into

00:15:04 four different sections, just based on the cash flow. And the money management. The first

00:15:09 series what we do is called as Kirana Chronicles, which is essentially looking at financial

00:15:14 journey of MSME so MSME could be retailers, B2B businesses, manufacturers, traders, etc.

00:15:22 Now their journey is completely different from millennial banking. Millennial banking

00:15:26 are essentially people like us where who have who are relatively younger, I would say like

00:15:32 less than 34 years old. Who have high disposable income, which essentially can say high disposable

00:15:37 income means out of the entire salary they will be comfortably be able to lead their

00:15:42 life with minimum basic space spending just 20 or 25% of salary like that what I mean

00:15:48 by high disposable salary. And third series that we do to Rural Journeys so with rural

00:15:53 journeys. We try and cover a lot of tire three cities. The tier 3 three cities we try and

00:15:57 see a lot of self-help groups out of socio aspects come into terms of credits and savings

00:16:03 and what are the government initiatives that happen there and we try and understand what

00:16:07 does banking correspondent. Banking correspondent is nothing but an individual who does the

00:16:12 banking operations on behalf of you because there is a lack of physical bank branches

00:16:16 there. So there is a representative who does banking operations, banking operations here

00:16:20 include transferring of money withdrawing of money paying electricity bills, etc. Imagine

00:16:27 like a Google pay being done by another person. Right. And last one is Blue Collar workers

00:16:32 with blue collar workers we try and cover people who are gig economy focused and also

00:16:36 people who are contract workers are people who work. Who are, I would say laborers who

00:16:42 are not knowledge workers. So we cover them. What do we cover their essentially we do in

00:16:48 depth qualitative research the qualitative research covers the main financial journey

00:16:53 which is divided into spend. Spend talks about income and expense. Save talks about what

00:16:58 do they do they access to money. Borrow which is essentially during the emergency where

00:17:02 do they borrower how do they borrow at what interest rate do they borrow and for this

00:17:06 plan for unplanned emergencies. How do they plan do they have insurance they have plans

00:17:11 etc. Right. Now, out of all of this. beyond this we also try and understand what are the

00:17:16 goals and aspirations, we have figured out that Finances always associated with the goals

00:17:21 and aspirations in life we try and understand that in most of these aspects we are not very

00:17:27 much interested in understanding what is the exact income or what or how much we invest

00:17:33 a female but be more interested in what the nudges. What are the motivations for someone

00:17:38 to do something, why did you choose HDFC and not ICICI or why did you choose this loan

00:17:46 verses if you have to take a home loan how did you go about it. How did you choose the

00:17:52 period in which you're going to re pay you could be doing it for 15 years we could be

00:17:55 doing 20 years you could be doing it for 25 years? I would love to understand how do they

00:18:00 make the. How do they make the choice, right? What does 15 years mean to them 20 years mean

00:18:03 to them 25 years mean to them. If you're doing savings. I would love to understand that your

00:18:09 savings have a good associated with it. Right. Are you saving for your kid s marriage? Are

00:18:13 you saving for your some of your for your children's education right if you if you haven't

00:18:18 had a goal associated with how are you choosing how much to see what does the retirement money

00:18:23 mean to them. So all of these questions is what we collect and convert them into long

00:18:29 format stories like. In the long format stories. I can quickly show you one of it. Yeah, so

00:18:38 in the long format stories. What we do is we completely fictionalize the story which

00:18:42 essentially means we mark any identifiable information. And we put them in all of the

00:18:50 story where we have this beautiful visualizations on a snapshot bank accounts. Which is essential

00:18:54 and you have the researcher s perspective of what they think about it and we have anecdotes

00:18:59 from the story, which covers all the four sections that I spoke about. I'm going to

00:19:05 share this links to you guys maybe you can have a look at it. Then going back and we

00:19:11 figured out that, you know, long format stories are one way of how we look at these research.

00:19:16 Then we also experimented with other formats. We also send newsletters once in a month,

00:19:22 which isn't somebody could subscribe and directly lands in the inbox, or we recently covered

00:19:26 by Forbes as one of the newsletters much must be read in the Fintech domain. Then we also

00:19:32 started seeing that in. Okay. We are a social media generation we might not have high attention

00:19:36 span. And he said that, you know, within 10 slides. Can I tell the story of an individual?

00:19:41 Which is like a snapshot. We don't expect people to get everything from it but we said

00:19:45 that you know, if somebody reads them they should be intrigued in reading the full story.

00:19:50 So this is something that we published, we take the same story scale it down to say that

00:19:54 you know 10 slides. Can I tell a story? That's one format in which we do the research then

00:19:59 we take the research also to the industry and the policymakers by doing roundtables.

00:20:04 So these are very close group invite only round tables that are done so in this roundtable

00:20:10 you're talking about MSME lending you have folks from Khata book, okay credit and raise

00:20:15 a pay and we have Saranya who's also a policy expert. We try and say that hey, this is the

00:20:21 research. These are the insights are you aligned to our mission like a quickly going. The next

00:20:26 one we try and do Design Jams. So Design Jams in the PICO which will be used to have physical

00:20:31 Design Jams that are used to do design hackathons. This is a design act on that happened last

00:20:36 year, almost a year last year, September, October is when we did this Jam. So these

00:20:41 are the people who participated. From there, and we take the research convert them into

00:20:45 personas. And we do them say that, you know, hey, here's a persona. Here's the problem

00:20:48 statement in Fintech and you solve for it. And we bring people from the different design

00:20:53 a different organization. We put them into teams we see If there is a magic that can

00:20:58 happen that people can think a little differently than how they've been traditionally thinking

00:21:01 and we document all of the prototypes that come out of the Design Jam. And we also put

00:21:05 it out in the public for people to consume. So these are the kind of people. We've been

00:21:11 very lucky enough to collaborate with so, which is essentially with these folks. We

00:21:15 have done some of the other projects in the past or we are the term. We are the talks

00:21:20 of doing a project. Currently and these are some of the few of the collaborations I would

00:21:25 say, like, you know, these are people who well Wisher was really our research and they

00:21:29 are always in touch with us. We kind of also get the sense of what does industry look like

00:21:34 and what the industry wants from understanding the users is something that we constantly

00:21:40 have an engagement. And we would say, we call them the friends of the D91. So there are

00:21:45 more and more people who are joining this club. Yeah, so that's like the short introduction

00:21:51 of what we do us can reach out to us to email you can follow us on Twitter. We also haven't

00:21:55 we recently started the Instagram thing. So it follows on Instagram. So that's the presentation.

00:22:03 Thank you Dharmesh that was really very educational. And now will move on to the second part where

00:22:09 we're interested in learning about your design journey. What inspires you, when you know

00:22:13 how you're keeping up with things around? So let me start with, like, the first question

00:22:19 that I asked most of that, you know, our guest that when and how did you think of becoming

00:22:25 a designer and how did it start for you?

00:22:28 I would say I m very accidental designer, because I known tools like Photoshop and everything.

00:22:36 I come from a very small town like its Erode in Tamil Nadu and so I come from a small town

00:22:41 I learn Photoshop, but just to play around edit your pictures of edit your friends pictures

00:22:46 Taj Mahal behind and stuff like that. So all I knew at that point of time is yeah I know

00:22:51 this tool I can play around with it. Probably the maximum I could become is this photo editor

00:22:56 in this all the photo studios. This is honestly what I thought I could become. But ended up

00:23:01 in the undergrad college and I was doing a lot of these posters. I was doing a lot of

00:23:06 this event, which I think as a junior engineering student who knows Photoshop. I accidentally

00:23:13 discovered this friend who was a senior, which is Suresh. Suresh was my senior and he also

00:23:21 someone who I started looking up to and because he also knew this tools much more refined

00:23:26 in his thoughts. We used to do all this, like we used to have this adda we used to sit and

00:23:32 talk for hours. He is also have no idea about NID. But, you know another friend who kind

00:23:38 of took him to accidentally to an NID exam and he actually got through and he said he's

00:23:46 going to go to it and we kept in touch and he kept telling about what is new media design

00:23:51 and what does NID look like and he's the one who planted the seed of saying Hey you know

00:23:57 what you are good at something, you should pursue it. I've been pursuing it. So it was,

00:24:01 very accidental like if I'd never met him in the college. Honestly, I hated my UG like

00:24:08 if there's one thing that happened good is meeting him. Yeah, so I pretty much followed

00:24:14 his path for quite some time. So yeah, I mean I'm lucky that. So yeah, then I knew about

00:24:21 NID, then I applied and I got through it.

00:24:24 You started your journey with a new media design. Right. And then how did you settle

00:24:29 for field of research then?

00:24:31 So research. I was completely blown by ethnography course that we had in our college I thought

00:24:39 this is a pretty interesting great to understand people like this just understanding strangers,

00:24:44 as I'm observing strangers has always been like you know like if you allow me just sit

00:24:50 and observe people the chaos and all of it. I love chaos and I just like observing people

00:24:55 from a distance and who was a professor taught us to do it in a much more systematic way

00:25:01 like active engagement and passively observing someone like I always had this inquiry saying

00:25:07 that you know it is such a powerful tool to understand people. Why isn t yet being used

00:25:12 in industry, right. So whenever I spoke to and I was completely drawn to the world of

00:25:18 startups, I had a lot of opportunities are going into bigger companies but I chose startup

00:25:23 s because I thought I could pick up the role I want I could hustle that all and I don't

00:25:28 have to be so I did my Graduation project with Adobe I met some amazing people. But

00:25:34 it's just that this confined to one product one rule. Like doing the very structured work

00:25:40 is not something that was very exciting. Like, I wanted to try on multiple different stuff

00:25:45 so startup s was a good place to, you know, be there and hustle around. There I was, actually,

00:25:51 I was able to relate with founders more than like the designers, at least at that point

00:25:56 of time. Because the founders, I thought that the insight that they get and the conviction

00:26:02 that they get to actually start a company comes from doing such research right. It's

00:26:08 either a problem that they already faced themselves or they observed a problem very closer. And

00:26:14 they would have spoken to them understand they will be able to have done it better like

00:26:19 Oh I thought you know okay, but what happens is somewhere when the company grows that spirit

00:26:24 dies down right then it becomes about tracking numbers going behind matrix and all of it.

00:26:30 I knew that there is a huge opportunity to mimic the founder s enthusiasm inside that

00:26:37 company. By establishing a research team. Like I always have a backup line but it took

00:26:43 me five years to make someone agreed to saying that you know, to find that synergy with someone

00:26:49 to say that, you know, let's do it. So, but what changed was that you know, I never gave

00:26:54 up. Like, I see a lot of my other friends who had given up that you know. This is not

00:26:59 going to happen. Let me just keep doing like a product design UI UX and stuff like that

00:27:02 but I always tried introducing some of the research methods in some form or the other

00:27:07 and all the places that I've worked with In fact, that the current role that in doing

00:27:11 came out of experiment that I did in the previous company which I was casually talking to someone

00:27:17 and said do you know what I think I can do like an another bigger experiment with you

00:27:21 and that how this lab started right so that that's how I moved to research like now being

00:27:28 a full time research.

00:27:30 And then how did you choose Fintech?

00:27:33 Fintech is something I think I started as a curiosity. But I think now it's a very strategic

00:27:39 thing. I will tell why it is strategy. I hope that you know people take that and more people

00:27:45 come like one is because I was really scared of finance. I was very scared of not being

00:27:50 able to manage my own finances. I did again like a small experiment around like I say

00:27:56 that, oh, you know what I'm going to just want to track my instances like you know there

00:28:00 was like a period of three months where I would keep scanning every bill on Evernote

00:28:04 and I will keep having a note of it. I would keep like the strife what is the right amount

00:28:10 of money that I'm spending per month. And challenging for me to do it right and then

00:28:16 also figure out lot of my friends. Nobody does it like lot of them doesn t do it at

00:28:21 least at that point of time, right, you know, because numbers or something that's cares

00:28:24 us right. And it's not. It may sound clich , but you know we kind of try to stay away

00:28:31 from this entire number game. I said you know this is something that feels me and I want

00:28:35 to get into it. I want to overcome this fear is how I started breaking down in managing

00:28:41 my own finances is when there are other friends who helped me saying that you know you know

00:28:45 what they said larger problem to be right. And that's how I slowly. moved from okay managing

00:28:52 let's figure out my finance to India's finance with that journey right and today also I am

00:28:58 very openly saying like you know many people would dismiss Fintech because it's not. It's

00:29:04 quite challenging to like. So for example, I understand it's a high, it had somebody

00:29:10 who's building like a hyper local amputation they could be Ola, Uber or could be any other

00:29:17 like Urban Clap you largely have similar mental models of course there are challenges in depth

00:29:21 to that also. But last year, I could take similar mental model and apply that Fintech

00:29:26 what happens like I was telling before. Let's say if you're designing for an e-commerce

00:29:31 you traditionally know have your purchasing in a supermarket or a grocery store. All you

00:29:34 have to do is take that mental model and try and convert it into a digital format so you

00:29:39 know what a browsing means and all of that. Now when it comes to Fintech this person might

00:29:45 not have seen mutual funds and his real life right you may have to educate them about mutual

00:29:49 funds and then help them adopt that mutual funds completely in a digital platform without

00:29:54 a user like an agent being into picture. Now you will be able to do that only if you understand

00:29:59 mutual funds yourself. You understand what as large cap funds mean you understand what

00:30:04 expense ratio means what does Fund houses mean and all of that. Right. So there's a

00:30:09 huge learning curve. So I've been very selfish to say that, you know hey you know if I pass

00:30:13 this learning curve and there is a huge barrier for other people to come there. Right, so

00:30:19 again I am saying this openly because I want more people to come. It's going to be challenging.

00:30:24 So then I figured out that you know okay I'm going to figure out this niche for myself

00:30:29 I want to set a niche where a lot of people believe that you know design is very horizontal,

00:30:34 I can take this expertise and I can put it into any vertical that I want like I could

00:30:40 work for healthcare that would work for Fintech etc. Right.

00:30:43 But I kind of believe in knowledge compounding Right, so I keep compounding my knowledge

00:30:49 in a certain field. So, that it reach to a point where I should be only person whom we

00:30:55 should reach out to at some point of time because I want to build that niche and this

00:30:59 is just into building that niche.

00:31:01 So we did discuss lot of challenges that are there in you know for different tactics in

00:31:09 India. But what would be the two top challenges for Fintech if you're building any Fintech

00:31:13 product in India.

00:31:15 One is financial awareness definitely right. So this is funny. You know, you go through

00:31:21 an education because you want to earn money, but nobody tells you how to manage your money.

00:31:27 Like why can t kids learn about compound interest? Right. You talk about it in a small aspect

00:31:34 in mathematics, but with real life examples we don't still learn about compound interest.

00:31:36 We don't learn about how to say what insurance means we don't know. Right. So the financial

00:31:42 awareness is extremely important and the second is the ability to use technology to its fullest.

00:31:51 Today everybody talks about saying that, you know, we have 440 million smartphone users

00:31:57 internet users in India. But the problem is most of them are either consuming content

00:32:02 or a very passively active they are not complete active on internet what it means. Even when

00:32:08 people say that it will be using WhatsApp, so I try and ask them, I am somebody who's

00:32:12 reading WhatsApp or are you somebody who's forwarding WhatsApp, or are you someone who

00:32:16 will actually creating messages on water. So that's the three levels of a look at it.

00:32:21 Even a larger scale. So we have a we have a scale in which we look at it. There are

00:32:25 people who might just consume information they might use social media apps. They made

00:32:29 us messaging apps. Then they go to a little more active way of using internet is actually

00:32:34 purchasing something online. In fact, payment apps and banking apps come to the last level

00:32:40 like the most complicated one to actually use because, you know, if I post something

00:32:44 in social media like in most of the cases, right. There's not nothing much to lose. Like

00:32:50 if I am somebody not known much to people. And not to say that it is, but even like a

00:32:55 common man, I don't know much to lose. I know I can dedicate the next week over a number

00:32:58 of posts or something. But if they make a mistake in when transferring money to someone,

00:33:02 I lost my hard earned and I have real life impact. Yeah. So, just so that ability to

00:33:08 build applications in which gains trust of the user. And yet, gives the security field

00:33:16 for them. The second challenge.

00:33:19 So, because of this new reality which was covid 19 many sectors have been impacted.

00:33:23 Is there any impact on Fintech, and if so, how have you evolve. You know, what your strategies

00:33:30 to evolve. Yeah, of course, every sector will have its

00:33:34 impact, In fact Fintech is like into both. Like, I would say it's a boom and it also

00:33:42 curse. The boom for the fact, you know, you see now people adopting lot more digital payments.

00:33:50 Yeah, if demonetization was the first nudge and see covid as the second huge night for

00:33:55 people to adopt digital payment. Adopting digital payments is actually a good sign.

00:34:01 Because that's the first step towards your digital Journey. Can you stop? So we started

00:34:06 talking savings bill payments. Right now, that's one huge thing. Second thing, it's,

00:34:12 it's not a great thing because what is happening right now is banks are very, very scared to

00:34:20 lend. Okay, so the RBI has actually reduce the repo rate. This is the rate at which they

00:34:24 may need to the banks, but the banks are not very comfortable to lend. To the that's all

00:34:34 the it'll trickle down right you know depends on if they start giving up to the small businesses,

00:34:36 small businesses going through the business when the people will come and buy wasn't there

00:34:39 is no visibility into the future. But trickling down of the loans does not happen. People

00:34:45 have money, but they don't, they're not willing to lead right and that's a big problem. Only

00:34:51 that happens like and everybody is really genuinely hoping that you know this, the Diwali,

00:34:55 because like the change in a period where people kind of consume more and people borrow

00:35:01 more and produce more and the Diwali seems to be like one of the full which will change

00:35:07 the which will change the current scenario for the lending sectors special

00:35:11 Diwali should do that I guess. So there are a lot of things which happens with digital

00:35:18 team. And so, you know, just digital in general, which is sometimes, you know, there are cyberattacks,

00:35:23 data breach and now with everything which is going around. So there's a lot of problems.

00:35:28 One with security and second also with trust. Right. So how do you tackle such as issues?

00:35:34 Know, so let's break it down. Right. So one is where your data being leak though, we've

00:35:44 been currently doing like this one project around data sharing and we've been talking

00:35:48 to more people. This is the layers in which I which people understand by privacy and data

00:35:52 share, right, so always first Instance comes to around how to, how does someone get a phone

00:35:58 number and getting so that I'm getting a call. Right. They have the theories around it, either

00:36:03 my bank leak it or I leak the information or they had their databases, which has been

00:36:07 sold. So that's the first. What do you see mistrust happens that the second mistrust

00:36:13 happens where the scams happen, right you know scams is where either could be first

00:36:21 hand or second hand, right you know what people are talking about, you know, oh, I was being

00:36:26 duped, or my friend has been duped right. And the third level is where the current mainstream

00:36:30 conversation that happens around privacy of the Chinese accent. And even when advocacy

00:36:35 to came into picture. There was a lot of privacy concerns and stuff that they people are talking

00:36:40 about. It's no more a technology problem is it becomes a geopolitical problems right and

00:36:44 now imagine we ve come to situation why I'm using an app or not using a nap, not because

00:36:49 of the features, but because of the ideologies. Right. So these are the neck layers in which

00:36:55 I look at it now especially coming to this scam layer, it has to be both ways. Right,

00:37:02 one that is why I talked about financial awareness being extremely important and second is where

00:37:08 even though it takes, we should not be optimizing for clicks. Right. So let's say for example.

00:37:14 Now recently Google pays implemented this aspect, saying that, you know, every time

00:37:18 before you pay. There is a pop up, which comes with say is that you know you are paying this

00:37:22 individual. Right. Are you okay with it, this comes specially when there's a UPA request

00:37:26 that happens. Right now in the UPA request in the early days, like, you know, the UPA

00:37:31 payment of the UPA request screen if you just looked at it. There is a minimal difference

00:37:37 right in almost all the apps. Now, people have consciously know put an effort to design

00:37:42 them in a different way. Right, now slowly over a period of time is financial awareness

00:37:47 are all of this is where we we will, we can only handle the problem. That way I don't

00:37:51 have one answer. But on the other hand, what I know. The downside of it is something that

00:37:57 I know. Let's say you, you go to a shop. You buy a product and you don't like the product

00:38:04 you're just going to accuse that guy or you going to accuse the brand. Right. But if you

00:38:09 come to digital payments and the first time you're trying to do. Or if you're encountering

00:38:14 a scam. You may not complete digital payments ever again. Right, which means you're using

00:38:18 a customer for digital payments for life time, you do very difficult to get their confidence

00:38:23 back to that is something we like to keep in mind when we're taking partnerships.

00:38:29 That's something I'm also you've also, you know, a lot of different mediums that you're

00:38:35 using for disseminating all of this awareness. And I also be see this WhatsApp group which

00:38:41 is tales of barath. What is that? So the tales of barath started. So we have

00:38:46 been doing a lot of analysis of this interview snippet. So, earlier we had we were also publishing

00:38:56 the transcripts of the interviews, along with the stories. But there was a lot of concerns

00:39:00 around the one was, you know, we were not sure. Like, you know, if it's an ethical quote

00:39:02 and quote ethical way to do it. We didn't know if there is an ethical way to do it so.

00:39:08 And the second thing was that in of course that transcripts were too long and we didn't

00:39:12 know the impact of how many people are leading. Again, this is a new experiment which we started

00:39:17 with me, like, like it's been doing it for like almost a month. When we saying that,

00:39:21 you know, can I contextualize it saying that, you know, hey, you know what, can you read

00:39:25 only about the banking behavior? Can you read when you were the payments behavior, Right

00:39:29 this is the person. It's almost like you know morning I wake up I want like a small dose

00:39:33 of research right, you know I want to understand someone Right, it's serendipitous it's not

00:39:38 something that you've seek for, but you know it's nice to know serendipitous sort of the

00:39:43 discovery that happens. I'm hoping that, you know, hoping in future mechanism able to collect

00:39:48 it do sustainably for almost a year, maybe for the Complete database outside that you

00:39:52 could traverse through it and find insights that you've won. Yeah, but, but this is right

00:39:56 now is just an experiment. A lot of my friends I've been doing WhatsApp newsletters, I got

00:40:00 a very inspired from them. So I thought, you know, this could be like a WhatsApp newsletter

00:40:04 sort of thing that we read doses of research. So how can one get it?

00:40:09 Right now we just started with one group. And it's almost full. Now I'm just waiting

00:40:15 to see one I should be having confidence, like, you know, daily Regularly posting the

00:40:20 don t want to start multiple groups and like, keep up, keep people hanging. So I should

00:40:27 get the confidence, like in a great start with few one group, but in future definitely

00:40:31 would like to open up our groups and then we will send out the invite.

00:40:34 So what is the future vision for Fintech, especially in India?

00:40:39 The future vision for Fintech. Like I said that you know everybody should have access

00:40:43 to all the kind of financial products. Second, we should have choices and all kinds of financial

00:40:49 products And it's, its very heartwarming because all the interviews where I talk about, they

00:40:55 talk about their dreams. Let's say it could be, they could be starting a kirana store.

00:40:59 They could be wanting to buy a laptop, they would be wanting to buy a cattle and all of

00:41:04 it. And trust me, all of the money that they need in their life to jump to the next level.

00:41:12 Would be. Yeah, could be. It could be the excessive expense that we do on a monthly

00:41:14 basis. Right. It could be less than 50,000 20,000 and stuff like that. Other Stories.

00:41:17 The talk about saying how not knowing the language, not having a document and not having

00:41:22 a credit score, not having an asset keeps them away from Financial access right there

00:41:29 should be some way for all of these people to get access to that so that they are not

00:41:34 trying to get the money to buy a bigger refrigerator or a car, but they trying to get something

00:41:39 so that they could have a better life. Right. So if you're able to do that. And if anyone

00:41:44 can play a small role in impacting organizations will do that. Yeah, then, then, then we are

00:41:51 we are at a good place and that there will be happy place to be. And that's my future

00:41:57 vision. About financial inclusion in that sense, but

00:42:01 in broad sense, what do you mean by financial inclusion?

00:42:05 Financial inclusion, by means by this, like, like how is talked about saying that, you

00:42:08 know, if I have a requirement. For a 40,000 rupee loan to buy a computer so that I could

00:42:14 set up a computer center, but I do not have hard assets which is I don't have a land.

00:42:19 I have a goal that stuff like that banking institution should be able to assess me through

00:42:25 alternate data. Right. So with alternate data could be made phone usage my mobile bill payment

00:42:31 or you could be my bank account through which to which I could figure out, like, no, it

00:42:35 is he paying electricity bill at the right time. Is he having maintenance of these alternate

00:42:39 data points, you should help him get a loan without risking his life. Right to be I will

00:42:47 be able to get a loan like you know HDFC readymately tells me whenever you open. Hi sir, There

00:42:52 was two lakhs whenever you can take with me because I don't need it. Right. I get keep

00:42:56 getting savvy, but it is to keep sending me that that's the kind of product he needs it,

00:43:00 without asking much questions he wanted, because only when you pass that he'll be able to prove

00:43:05 that So that's what I mean by financial inclusion, are the choices I have should be there for

00:43:12 everybody. I was reading some articles on you know, finance

00:43:14 and things like that. And there was like, and we if we will, you know, thought about

00:43:20 that. How can in fact that women are left behind. And all of these, you know, When you

00:43:26 did research. What was your, you know, some of the findings that you thought about gender

00:43:30 or let's say equality or, you know, just women, leaving behind because I think very, very

00:43:36 moved by the story that I've actually gone and seen and type three cities, right. So,

00:43:43 these, these women are very aspirational very empathetic. Nobody complains about the current

00:43:50 situation, the entire family might be living in 10,000 rupee income or like 13,000 rupee

00:43:55 income because most of the company patriarchal society. Right. You know, there's only one

00:43:59 family member working there are multiple chances were either the man of the family is not quote

00:44:05 unquote fit to actually make take them to the next level or they face some sort of a

00:44:09 health crisis or the person could have passed away. They still have the aspirations to move

00:44:14 forward and that is why the self-help groups are formed in in rural part they actually

00:44:22 make sure that when women come like there is no separate group concept in men and that's

00:44:26 called chit funds that are going to private in an organized manner. But anything that

00:44:30 happens through the government happens only with women. Why that happens is they have

00:44:35 this they bank on the social connect like. So essentially if they there's a group bonding

00:44:44 that happens that group borrows like one lakh rupee let's everybody gets 10,000 even if

00:44:48 one person fail to actually repay money per month, we have a pipeline to get the entire

00:44:53 group does not get loan after that. Right, so the hypothesis. It comes from Muhammad

00:44:59 Yunus who started with Grameen Bank, the competitors comes from the fact that, you know, women

00:45:04 are much, much more responsible because they thinking they because they thinking for the

00:45:09 kids they thinking for the family they thinking far into the future. So in that way. I have

00:45:14 like really high hopes for most of these women to take this money and get into the entrepreneurial

00:45:20 journeys into doing But, but when it comes to, like, say, for example, some of the interviews

00:45:26 that you've done where women are very well like they have higher Little higher amount

00:45:32 of disposable income. Beyond done like a proper series by itself, like, you know, but today,

00:45:37 if I, if there is a couple right you know there is a married couple, they have to mental

00:45:43 models of who's going to handle what. Now, there is no point and actually pinpointing

00:45:49 saying that, Amanda, as it women, does it. I'm not getting into that conversation, but

00:45:52 inside within a relationship. There are people who say that, you know, I will handle finance

00:45:57 and I will handle the other aspects of it. Life and some of the interviews where we talk

00:46:01 about saying that they say that, you know, I know, minimum would finance, but my husband

00:46:04 and it's everything yeah that's the dynamics between that family. And that is how it is,

00:46:10 it remains a lot of the some of the interviews that that we have. And that's, that's what

00:46:13 the so in other pointer to something that we tried organizing a personal finance well

00:46:20 known for women, but all kinds of events we used to get like hundred 5200 registrations,

00:46:26 and realized most of them are only Men are coming. We made sure that you Women will come.

00:46:30 Yeah, right. And we did not get enough registrations and I had to like call some of my friends

00:46:35 and saying, hey, come, come, come, come, come. And everybody had their own reasons of why

00:46:39 they were not interested. Right. This is again goes back to financial awareness. Right. So,

00:46:45 like, like it was also should be made important that, what is financial freedom mean. You

00:46:49 shouldn't be dependent on other people. So like as much as we raised voices our own equal

00:46:56 pay equal wages, I strongly believe that needs to be an equal voice that is raised for saying

00:47:01 that, you know, financial awareness. What does that kind of freedom mean for women?

00:47:06 I this is my personal opinion. We're still not there yet. And hopefully we see moving

00:47:11 towards that part. So I was moving. I was reading about a Demonetize

00:47:16 time and you know how impacts were and things like that from the perspective of women again.

00:47:22 And many of them had these habits of not really putting it in banks so that was like some

00:47:26 of the things that I, you know, you know, I thought about and thought that you because

00:47:31 you've done so much research, who would be able to talk about something.

00:47:36 That they did like this. I mean, I haven't read, read the stories but you know a lot

00:47:39 of people have told me one of the issues people. Who were impacted by this housewives who were

00:47:44 saving the smaller amounts of money without actually being the purview of the family,

00:47:49 like, you know, that is very common. And it is also common. Why, because of the bag, not

00:47:54 because you know the husband is going to drink you know. It's just that if you come from

00:47:58 a relatively low socio economic background. And little extra money also means that you

00:48:03 tend to spend on something which is quote and quote luxury. It could be, you could you

00:48:06 could go into a cinema. You could buying sweets or getting chocolates for the kids and stuff

00:48:11 like that. It's actually the women in the family can say that, you know, you know what

00:48:14 I do need this expense this expense can actually help in the future for something else which

00:48:19 probably that will be discrepancy between the man and the woman or like, yeah, other

00:48:23 people in the family, so that way they tend to say

00:48:26 Yeah, that was about all the financial inclusion questions and things are thoughts that are,

00:48:31 you know, that I wanted to ask you about I want to ask you now a very general question

00:48:37 in terms of, you know, how we proceed design. So they're not definitions of what good designers

00:48:41 and each one has their own. What is your thoughts on the design?

00:48:47 I mean, for me good design is something which helps somebody do certain action goal intend,

00:48:56 whatever it is, like, yeah, so it says me for me it looks like tools that are built

00:49:03 within intact. Right now, like this laptop was built the intent of helping communicate

00:49:10 and now it's helping me communicate. This I think is a good design. And I also believe

00:49:14 that good design. I strongly believe in the aspect of good design being invisible. Like

00:49:21 it should become a part of my life, which would become a part of my identity. So I tend

00:49:25 to appreciate a lot designed from a very utilitarian perspective. Different people have different

00:49:30 aspects of it. Like, even in some of like. The design graduates. You see, people tend

00:49:35 to move more towards art, but I am so very good most move towards utility like maybe

00:49:40 now this mono block chair, which is the plastic chair that we see every day. And that's one

00:49:45 of the very famous design examples because it's one chair which you see, it's, its fun.

00:49:52 Throw the world. You could see it in the cafe in Paris to a marriage Hall in a small town

00:49:58 in India was a chair does not have a context by just photographing the chair, you will

00:50:02 not know where it was photographed. So I believe now design that that kind of blends with our

00:50:09 life and with Just its there does the job, what it's supposed to do without kind of screaming

00:50:14 for attention. Now I moved towards the design inspirations

00:50:20 or what does you know inspires you as a designer so you can go if you have clear, you know,

00:50:26 thoughts about what inspires you, you can go ahead and answer that, or I'll ask you

00:50:32 specific ones. So I have an alternate interest which kind

00:50:37 of is where I look for parallels of inspiration, which is essentially movies, you know I get

00:50:43 inspired, when I says movies . It's not about consuming movies. It's about also how movies

00:50:48 are being made. Right. So I read a lot about outright screenplays on board director s work.

00:50:54 So if I'm watching even like starting from Christopher Nolan common movie. I tend to

00:51:00 watch the making of it. What, how did they conceive a particular scene? And how did this

00:51:06 happen. So if you talk to me like if you ever have like a design discussion with me to see

00:51:10 me drawing a lot of references from his movies world. Right so i think i think movies have

00:51:16 been a heavy inspiration of inspiring me because that's almost form of storytelling. I, I love

00:51:23 how translating some of those emotions into design for me movies has been placed for a

00:51:31 good inspiration. Any inspirational people maybe some design,

00:51:35 not from design, but who have inspired you get bored with just

00:51:40 I actually look up a lot of people outside of design because design is actually an amalgamation

00:51:47 of other lot of other fields. Right. Then I started feeling that you know if they

00:51:52 start looking for people outside design is where I can start getting new ideas into design.

00:51:58 So one of the person. I really love is Muhammad Yunus who started Grameen Bank who started

00:52:03 the MBA microfinance revolution, the book that I read. The Banker to the Poor is somewhere

00:52:09 inside my Fintech your name and I started reading a book is where I said, oh, you know

00:52:13 what, there's another whole new world of access to finance as opposed to designing for better

00:52:18 financial services. This that book could change really changed my life. That's one person

00:52:23 that I look up to. But other than that, I try to look at lot of economics journalists

00:52:28 these days. One of the other person that I've been really in love with is Amit Varma who's

00:52:32 been doing the seen and unseen podcast. Right, Yeah. So some of these people are the ones

00:52:38 that I kind of look up to. But with these are the kind of people that that I kind of

00:52:44 look up to. And the last question that I asked you for today is some of the advice for young

00:52:51 and budding designers. That's going to be little difficult because I generally. So one

00:52:59 of the things that there is started understanding is, the more honest I am for myself. This

00:53:05 is what makes me unique designer, as opposed to trying to fit in, like, it took me a lot

00:53:11 of time. I still, I think I'm in the journey where try to be comfortable about your thoughts

00:53:16 comfortable about your feelings comfortable about your body appearance shave everything

00:53:22 right. I want to be who I am. Right. And the more I tend to be who I am. I start attracting

00:53:28 likeminded people. And that's all it matters for me, but I'm not here to design something

00:53:34 which the entire world are supposed to use I am okay to design for our community. Even

00:53:39 if 10 people with changes in life if it impacts them a lot I measure impact by that, not by

00:53:46 the scale of it, but the depth of it. Yeah, right. So, Let's try to find out who you are,

00:53:54 like, rather than seeking out like that's what people in research. I'm sure we've all

00:53:58 gone through the process of saying that you're trying to look inside is extremely important,

00:54:04 is what a big especially for designer, researcher Whoever it is being aware of my biases better

00:54:09 be coming from where does our thoughts come from articulating that is more important that

00:54:14 if it's a process. It's a journey it takes time, right and putting an effort to doing

00:54:21 that itself is a good place to start. It takes time. Yes, it does. And I think

00:54:27 Most of our, you know, People who have come on the show has been

00:54:33 telling that that you know good things take time and don't get, you know, afraid of your

00:54:37 somewhere struck. So that I think that's the recurring theme

00:54:39 that I've seen so many of our guests have been saying. But today's episode was really

00:54:45 very educational. It was on a way different note on syntax as you talk about the awareness

00:54:51 seems to be not very high. So it was really nice. You know, listening to you talking about

00:54:57 the Fintech industry and your thoughts and your, you know,

00:55:01 Stories that really inspired us and that Dharmesh for us today. You were the young aspiring

00:55:07 designer that that you know we were looking up to and we will look up to, for your work

00:55:12 and will follow it. You know, for years to come and see you know what you create unique

00:55:18 in this world. For all the things that you said and inspired

00:55:24 us today like to shower a small token of appreciation from our side. And that's a seal that we give

00:55:31 of inspiring young, young designer and title of that.

00:55:36 Thank you for coming