Latest stories

Disruption of Chit Funds and the Role of the India Stack.

Chit Funds are indigenous financial institutions in India. It is a mechanism that combines credit and savings in a single scheme. In a chit fund scheme, a group of individuals come together for a predetermined time period and contribute to a common pool at regular intervals. Every month, up until the end of the tenure of the scheme, the collected pool of money is loaned out internally through a...

Strategies for MNCs Engaging with Start-ups in Emerging Markets

For large global companies, forging effective partnerships with high-potential start-ups is easier said than done. The very traits that make such start-ups potentially complementary as partners also make it difficult for large companies to engage with them in the first place. Multinational corporations often struggle event to identify promising potential start-up partners, while start-ups find it...

Action For India's 6th Annual Forum invites FinTech startups

Just about two months ago, the nation attempted the massive ‘demonetization’ initiative at an unprecedented scale to clean-up illicit money and move towards greater economic equity and justice. As a consequence, the realm of digital money management and transactions saw a burgeoning growth and needless to say, this accelerated the vision of ‘Digital India’, the India where...

Mr. Sikka, you are right.

For any of you who may have missed Vishal Sikka communication to Infosys employees on the new year, read here. The problem that Vishal Sikka is alluding to is largely connected to the identity of our IT Industry today. We’re the ‘outsourcing’ destination for the world – and companies like Infosys actually helped create the concept of ‘outsourcing’. This is...

PAY-IT-FORWARD PARADOX… The More You Give, The More You Receive

Ever noticed how the busiest of people are often the ones that find time more easily than others? It is about making the time versus having the time! When you make time despite busy schedules and packed days to share your experience and perspectives it helps so many people, definitely more than you could individually imagine. In the process though, you get so much back, more than you could...

Product Manager as the Wicket Keeper

      Wishing you all a very happy 2017, may you get the guts and courage to make the change this year. Mahendra Singh Dhoni, one of the most successful cricketers is certainly an inspiration for all of us – cricket fans and Indians. While he is a famous and winning captain, probably being a wicket keeper has helped him to shape up his instincts, strategy and execution. Being...

Simplified Incorporation And Documentation Procedure

Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) has further simplified the ease of doing business in India by introducing SPICe forms to further digitize the company registration process. The form INC 29 was originally used to incorporate companies within a couple of days. Though this form simplified the process of incorporation, key stakeholders and professionals felt that this was a risky form because a...

BHIM (Android/*99#) & AadhaarPay

This afternoon the Prime Minister unveiled BHIM – an Android app from NPCI with an equivalent USSD-based *99# service. Additionally, recently one of the banks launched AadhaarPay – a capability that allows merchants to collect payments from consumers with their Aadhaar# and fingerprint. There has been a bit of confusion about the role of Aadhaar in BHIM – so this blog clarifies...

iSPIRT is ending the year on a high note

At the beginning of the year when we wrote down our thoughts in the 2016 Annual Letter about aspects such as break away from copy paste entrepreneurship, innovation bridge with Silicon Valley, progress on open market policies, etc. we thought we will score a few wins in the year. The pace of progress has surprised us. In many areas we have exceeded our best expectations.   The last few months...

A Leapfrog moment for Indian Banking

At iSPIRT, our belief is that banking will change more in the next five years than it has in the last 50 years. For a variety of reasons, the changes happening in India will follow a path that is very different from other countries. Indian Banks therefore have two choices: Create a new playbook to deal with these changes, or stick to the old rulebook and risk being disrupted. In mid-2015, Nandan...