Manavjeet Singh is a veteran banker with more than 25 years of experience. He is a well-recognized name in the banking & financial services industry. Manavjeet has worked with major companies like Xerox, Citibank India, SBI Mutual Fund, HDFC Bank, Reliance Consumer Finance, Reliance Broadcast Network Limited, and Yes Bank.
After having worked for more than two decades in the industry, Manavjeet conceptualized Rubique with a vision to bring transparency and to revolutionize customer experience. Aiming to be the country’s largest online marketplace for financial products, Rubique has created a strong foundation with the help of a team of 75+. Rubique currently operates only in Mumbai, Delhi, Pune, Kolkata, Hyderabad & Bangalore.
Please provide a brief overview of your product/ service.
Rubique is an online marketplace for financial products offering a wide range of loan products and end- to-end loan fulfillment to individuals and MSMEs. Rubique has introduced a tech-led lending solution which is unique in terms of its matchmaking algorithm and direct integration with Financial Institutions’ lending systems. With this technology solution, the model is focused on disbursement rather than mere lead generation allowing customer to get the best deal in the quickest possible time while lowering the cost for customer acquisition for the financial institution.
What inspired you to build the above product/ service?
I have been part of Indian Banking System more than 25 years and worked with the some of the Best financial institutions like CITI, HDFC Bank, Reliance Capital and Yes Bank. During these years, I got an opportunity to see the consumer & the lender interaction from very close quarters from different vantage points – from Retail lending to MSME finance to, Commercial Vehicle Finance. I saw there is a huge gap between Banks’ requirements & customer needs; and the challenges faced by Banks & the pain that customer goes through. The current marketplace for financial products is highly inefficient, time consuming & uncertain for customers as well as Banks. We know that for every borrower, there is lender willing to lend. However, the customer today has no sure shot way of finding that bank. And this is precisely we wanted to work on when we thought of idea of Rubique.
What is your life mantra?
Think Big, Dream Big
What was the most challenging part of your journey till now?
The challenge was to get financial institutions onboard. The initial months since our foundation were focused on tie-ups with maximum number of financial institutions. We can proudly say that we have 54 financial institution tie-ups as of today and the main reason to have such association is the value they have seen in our business proposition.
How did you overcome those challenges?
The experience of financial services domain helped us to put forward our business propositions across banks/financial institutions effectively. Getting a right talent is always the biggest challenge for startups and it was for us too. But with our CTO, Anadi Mishra joining us from Myntra, Manish Aggarwal – Business head joining from Reliance Jio and Jayatri Dasgupta – Marketing head joining from eZeego; the things are changing now
Share some details about the investments that you have been able to fetch for the business till now.
We have closed Series A funding of $3mn led by Kalaari Capital with participation from YourNest Angel Fund, Globevestor & Dexter Angel Circle, in September, 2015
How do you protect yourself from the problem of Brain Drain?
For us, we are yet to experience any attrition. For any startup, setup time is a challenging one. And retaining them becomes even more challenging as they are the building blocks in transformation of an idea into a reality. We value our team and to make sure that they are motivated & compensated rightly, we have molded our policies such a way that they strike a perfect balance between recognizing passion as well as performance. We follow a quarterly performance evaluation practice. This helps each team member to assess themselves in terms of their performance & align themselves towards the vision. Being an organization believing in constant evolution, such practice is helping us to be agile towards aligning our efforts towards dynamic market forces as well as maintaining our team’s passion & interest intact
According to you, what are the three qualities an individual must have to achieve success?
Passion, Positive Attitude & Persistence
Which online tools/ services/ apps do you use the most and would like to recommend as well?
My iPhone is “on the go” office for me
Share any one habit which you think makes you more productive.
Being very organized
Answer in less than 50 words
Unlearn to learn new things
- One mistake you believe every individual must avoid:
Rigidity towards the change
- One most important lesson that you have learnt till now:
Adaption is the key when you operate in dynamic scenario.
What are your plans for next 3 years?
We strive to become the largest online marketplace for loans in near future. We would like to establish ourselves as one of the few Fintech players changing the landscape of Indian lending space.
If you get a chance to start your career again what would you do differently this time?
Don’t believe in “ifs”, always look forward. But to answer here, I would throw away all inhibitions to turn an idea into a reality making it a successful business venture rather than starting the career with a job
What are your top three getaway destinations?
Shimla, Singapore & London
Share a quote that inspires you the most.
“Every champion was once a contender that refused to give up.”
