Religare and NASSCOM's CoE for AI & IoT Collaborate to Drive Emerging Tech Innovation

REL will leverage nasscom CoE’s expertise on co-creation and extensive access to innovation solutions from startups and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the tech sector for industry transformation.

The partnership will enable startups to address real business challenges and gain access to strategic investments.

Religare Enterprises Limited (REL), India’s leading diversified financial services group, and nasscom CoE for IoT & AI, have entered a strategic partnership to strengthen REL’s business processes & solution landscape, making it future-ready through the infusion of cutting-edge technology and innovation. The collaboration will harness the collective strengths of both organisations to enhance customer experience and drive operational efficiencies and data security while creating long-term value within the sector.

nasscom CoE’s expertise in co-creation and vast network of startups and SMEs specializing in emerging technologies such as AI,ML, AR/VR, Robotics, Blockchain, Drones, and IoT, will present Religare Group the access to relevant innovators and their technology. The Group will continue to explore potential business collaborations tailored to the company’s specific needs and seize possible opportunities to benefit the enterprise and BFSI sector.

With the announcement, nasscom CoE has also launched the Fifth version of the Healthcare Innovation Challenge (HIC), a one-of-its-kind initiative to tackle the challenges healthcare providers face in their journey to digital transformation. Religare Group’s Care Health Insurance Ltd, a leader in the health insurance space, will work with nasscom CoE in bringing digital technology solutions for the health insurance industry.

Announcing the partnership, Dr Rashmi Saluja, Executive Chairperson, Religare Enterprises Ltd said: “Our collaboration with nasscom CoE signifies a significant milestone in our journey towards becoming a 360-degree financial services provider by nurturing, adopting, and integrating technological innovations in our core and future businesses. By harnessing the power of emerging technologies, we aim to strengthen our business operations, enhance diligence, and deliver unparalleled value to our customers and shareholders. It is our vision that this partnership will not only accelerate our digital transformation but also enable us to support other players in the financial services sector to undertake this journey."

“Furthermore, our vision is to support startups that are born in India and focused on India-specific solutions. In doing so, we are aligning ourselves with the government's vision of an Atmanirbhar Bharat - a self-reliant and economically strong nation. Nurturing these startups will enable us to retain talent and ownership of India-centric solutions, thereby strengthening our global leadership in technology and innovations.”

The strategic partnership between Religare and nasscom CoE encompasses several key initiatives that aim to shape the future of financial services. Religare will gain access to a curated pool of innovators through regular pitch sessions, opening doors for potential collaborations in the near future. Additionally, Religare will have an early advantage in identifying strategic investment opportunities in startups, fostering innovation, and driving growth.

Emphasizing the potential of this partnership Mr Sanjeev Malhotra, CEO, nasscom CoE said: “Religare and its entities will jointly work on use-cases and co-create solutions with the startup ecosystem that will promote homegrown tech innovation driving significant impact on enterprises and create business value.”

As part of this partnership, Religare will also have the opportunity to mentor two CoE-incubated startups, leading to the nurturing of entrepreneurial talent. This strategic partnership will propel Religare’s digital transformation journey and position the company at the forefront of the industry, delivering cutting-edge solutions and unprecedented value to its customers.

Rural Fintech Spice Money and Religare Broking Take the LIC IPO to 10 Crore Rural Households

Spice Money, India’s leading rural fintech that is revolutionizing the way Bharat banks, today announced that it has partnered with Religare Broking Ltd. (RBL) to enable rural citizens to apply for the mega LIC IPO, a first-of-its-kind investment opportunity. Through this association, Religare Broking and Spice Money aim to provide rural citizens with equitable access to investment opportunities, thus, taking a step further in bridging the rural-urban divide and augmenting financial inclusion. 

Moreover, this association will allow over 95% of rural pin codes to get access to assisted phygital platforms to invest in capital market-linked opportunities such as equities, mutual funds, commodity, currency and NPS to build wealth for the future. The business partnership will pave the way ahead for a large scale financial inclusion and financial freedom for new-to-market investors in the rural segment.

Religare Broking is currently servicing over 10 Lakh Demat customers through its pan India network of 1100+ branches and business partners across 400+ cities in the country. Spice Money, on the other hand, is a leading rural fintech company with a wide network of over 10 lakh merchants (called Spice Money Adhikaris) serving over 10 crore households in 700+ districts across the hinterlands of India. Thus, investment services partnership between Religare Broking and Spice Money will facilitate rural India to get direct and assisted access to a Demat Account and invest in capital market-linked products.

While India has just recorded “the best IPO year” (2021) in two decades with new-age technology companies leading the way, the percentage of investors from rural parts of the country is extremely low due to the lack of access, awareness and assistance. Spice Money’s most inclusive and trusted community of high growth 1 million Adhikaris, who are looked upon as respected banking representatives, will act as a one-point contact for assisting rural citizens who want to invest in the LIC shares, but do not know where to begin. Spice Money Adhikaris will assist them to open a DEMAT Account and apply for the LIC IPO and invest in other products in the future.

Sanjeev Kumar, Co-Founder & CEO, Spice Money said, “We are thrilled to partner with Religare Broking to take the country’s biggest IPO to the hinterlands of India. At Spice Money, we are on a mission to drive financial inclusion for the country and this partnership will bring forth the opportunity for rural citizens to participate in the mega IPO and other capital market-linked products in the future, through our marketplace platform. Access to the IPO of a brand that commands nation-wide trust, like LIC, will help rural citizens warm up to the phenomenon of investment opportunities they are hitherto unaware of."

"A majority of rural households have little to no financial literacy and most prefer to park their money in bank deposits and therefore, they have to settle for low-interest rates, while there remains a massive opportunity to grow their wealth by making smart investments in capital markets. Seizing these opportunities will not only help in financial growth of rural citizens, but also help the revitalisation of the rural economy. It will play a key role in the country’s goal of becoming a $5-trillion economy and create an Atmanirbhar Bharat. This partnership shares mutual synergy of making people financially independent. Furthering digital and technological innovation, Spice Money aims to be a one stop platform for all rural financial needs," Sanjeev added.

On the announcement of partnership, Nitin Aggarwal, CEO, Religare Broking said, “We are delighted to join hands with Spice Money. With LIC IPO on its way, a huge opportunity awaits for new investors and its policyholders. Jointly Religare & Spice Money will play an instrumental role in building a rural India financial inclusion model, combining new age technology with human assistance and bring Ghar Ghar Demat Account. With the help of Spice Adhikaris, each investor willing to invest in IPOs can seamlessly open a Demat account on Dynami App and make informed decisions for a range of investment products."

Gurpreet Sidana, COO, Religare Broking said, “Continuing our promise to offer simplified investment journeys & innovative services, this time we are building a large scale phygital DIY facility with Spice Money for opening Sabse Sasta Demat Account. For new-to-market customers, including the masses, Religare Broking has recently announced new offering that provides Zero brokerage on delivery trades, Zero brokerage on non-profitable intraday trades and options trading at Rs.5 per lot. Our DIY account opening journey and trading platforms are backed by state of the art new age technology and simplified trading experience. Irrespective of the ticket size or location, an investor can seamlessly and affordably participate in capital market linked opportunities."

Religare Group Uses Technology to Sustain Business Continuity; Religare Broking Sees 50% Upswing in Online Trading During Lockdown

Religare Broking Limited (RBL), the broking arm of Financial Services Group, Religare Enterprises Limited (REL) has seen a whopping 50 percent upswing in trading volumes from online platforms since the nationwide lockdown was imposed for the first time. Trading volumes have shot up, especially on its mobile app Religare Dynami, driven by a significant behavioural shift by traders and investors towards self-execution model, even as the company has ensured near total operational continuity as it moved to 100% work from home mode for client servicing and operations team.

Smart leveraging of relevant technology such as cloud telephony-based solutions for RBL's dealing and service team, as well as seamless new e-collection mode of payments for customers, who are otherwise used to transferring funds through physical cheques & net banking, have sustained this spike.

''We were able to adapt to the situation quite early and ensured that the critical operations were up and running from home, before the lock-down. We ensured that even while we shift to a work-from-home model, business continues with minimal disruption and client needs are addressed in real-time through smart and efficient use of technological solutions. As a result, our online trading platforms, both the web portal and the 'Dynami' mobile app have actually seen a spike in number of active customers and transactions during the period of the lock-down," shared Nitin Aggarwal, CEO, Religare Broking Limited.

The same approach to business continuity has been followed by other subsidiaries of Religare Enterprises Limited, (REL), which has allowed the Group to continue operations without any business disruption.

Dr. Rashmi Saluja, Executive Chairperson, Religare Enterprises Limited, said, "It is an unprecedented situation and the Religare Group stands strong with the entire nation. The safety of our people and customer interest is our topmost priority. We have taken several measures to provide relief to our customers and employees in these testing times. Our operating companies have already implemented business continuity plans to serve our customers seamlessly in these difficult times. As a responsible organisation, REL will be contributing towards the PM CARES Fund as well."

Religare Housing Development Finance Corporation Limited (RHDFC) has also walked the extra mile to support customers, especially where there are cash flow or repayment issues. The company is reaching out to individual customers to assess their needs and address cash flow problems, thus underscoring the significant customer orientation in the company's operational philosophy.

''Given our operational experience and our anticipation of the imminent situation, we moved quickly to devise an alternative operating model to deal with the COVID situation. That model involved not only work from home and support to employees, but also factored in customer centricity and leveraging of technology for business continuity, as a result of which operations continued unabated during these difficult times,'' explained Rahul Mehrotra, CEO at RHDFCL.

Religare Finvest Limited (RFL), one of the leading SME financing platforms in India, has implemented the moratorium of up to 3 months by default, to all standard customers and is in touch with all customers to keep them informed of changes in their repayment terms. "The company is also working towards implementing automated and digital channels to solve the service related queries and requests in the shortest period of time. In spite of being under the Corrective Action Plan of RBI (CAP), the Company has repaid more than Rs. 6,450 crores to the lenders since January 2018, including a sum of Rs. 837 crores on March 26, 2020, during these difficult times," stated Pankaj Sharma, President and Head - Corporate Planning & Strategy at RFL. Nitya Kishore Sahu, Group Head, Compliance for Religare Enterprises Limited added, "Apart from submitting information on business operations and related matters to the regulator (RBI) during the Pandemic, we have also sought relief for the NBFC sector. We have maintained the highest standards of Corporate Governance to ensure that the interest of all our stakeholders, especially our customers and employees is taken care of during these difficult times."

"We are completely operational, without any service disruption, and are servicing all cashless as well as reimbursement claims of our customers through our digital tools. Additionally, we also continue to address all other policy servicing requests and enquiries received by our customer service team- telephonically, over e-mail or through one of our digital interfaces,'' said Anuj Gulati, MD & CEO at Religare Health Insurance Company Limited.

In fact, the entire Group is preparing for a post-COVID world wherein operating models will move to more digital mediums, enabling remote working opportunities to become the norm rather than the exception, and technology will take the front seat to ensure customer service and internal efficiencies.