Blog

Two former Google employees Sujith Narayanan and Sumit Gwalani, who pioneered building Google Pay, on Tuesday launched Fi — a neobank targeted at the salaried millennial customer base to help them understand money, save more, and spend intelligently.

The Bengaluru-based neobank has partnered with Federal Bank to enable its users to open their savings bank account with the attendant debit card, which the founders say will happen in three minutes.

Speaking on the launch, Co-founder Sujith Narayanan said, “Minimalism is our theme, and we want to demystify finance where people can clearly see where they have spent and how they can save.”

Fi will provide a full suite of banking experience along with intuitive hyper-personalised technology on the platform, which provides individual advice based on the requirement.

According to Sumit Gwalani, going by the beta version of the Fi app, it has resonated well with their targetted user base, especially on the savings feature.

To bring in a certain gamification element on the app, Fi also has a feature where users can allocate a certain amount of money as saving every time the individual’s favourite cricketer scores a boundary.

“Our objective is to raise the bar and reward people for saving money, nudging them to good financial habits,” Sujith said.

The Fi app will also allow for all kind of payment regardless of the channels — be it UPI, IMPS, NEFT, RTGS, or anything else. It will also include an automatic search of all the important IFSC code.

This fintech startup is keen to provide insights into an individual’s financial world and not just the record of their transactions. “All these are available on one tap,” added Sujith.

This fintech startup founded in May 2019 has already raised a seed round of $13.2 million from investors such as Sequoia India, Ribbit Capital, Hillhouse Capital, and CRED Founder Kunal Shah. It has a team strength of around 80 people.

Fi aims to have around two million customers on its platform, and will also be looking at partnerships with other banks. Besides, it will also bring newer features like lending and investments.

“It will be a completely new banking experience,” says Sujith.