The famous author, Paulo Coelho once said that “When you want something, the entire universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.” We come across people in life, who strengthen our faith in this statement even more. One such example is Ragunandhan Senthil Kumar, Co-founder & CTO of Bank-Genie, whose entrepreneurial journey has inspired many of us. Where people wrinkle their forehead after hearing the concept of Branchless banking, Ragunandhan Senthil Kumar started his journey in this venture with a pensive pluck.
As an entrepreneur, Ragunandhan always urged for new idea and challenges. In the year 2014, he started his career as an entrepreneur who believes in hard work and determination. He was quite perceptive and spent a lot of his time in the planning stage before establishing a new venture. According to him, challenges are in the planning stage. If one overcomes these challenges initially, then, in implementation stage it would be minimal. As he believes in the philosophy that challenges can boost people to work more and achieve more.
He belongs to the field of technology. He had a clear vision of what he wants to do in his life. The trials and experiences gave him the strength to achieve his goals. When he was pursuing his Bachelor degree in IT engineering, he got familiar with different facets of technology, He realized that more is to be done in the field of technology. This motivated him to continue the profession of a techie and later the passion propelled him to be an innovator
This is the time when he met Mr. Ramkumar Sarma who was equally enthusiastic to take up challenges and achieve what others thought as unachievable. They became very good partners from that moment.
They jointly incorporated the startup namely Bank-Genie Pte Ltd. An entrepreneur should be able to identify a correct partner Ragunandhan, as he came to be called thereafter, had that stellar quality.
“I never say No to the opportunities that knock my door. Innovation is in one’s blood; he should be able to identify it; and then, an entrepreneur is born”, assures Ragunandhan.
A Brief of Bank-Genie
Bank-Genie Pte Ltd focused on innovating affordable and efficient solution for achieving the goal of Branchless banking. It is a Fintech company based out of Singapore. The company has their branches in Malaysia, Kenya, and India to support its clients. Bank-Genie Pte Ltd has opened the window through their prime product -Bank-Genie- for digital banking system. The Product is innovated with the vision to democratize financial services and simplify banking operations. The company consists of a team of bankers, technocrats, and creative designers. They designed and developed a product which will save the banks the cost of establishing a brick and mortar infrastructure in every part of a country and at the same time facilitate transacting all type of retail banking functions in remote areas also. The company has decided to use the tablet or mobile technology to make it user-friendly. Bank-Genie team designed the technology, in such a way, that it can be operated even in remote areas where internet penetration is very poor. Bank-Genie would work even on the 2G network, which is available everywhere easily.
Motive behind the Company
The company decided that without disregarding the commercial interests of banks, they should take care of financial needs of the hitherto financially excluded people of the hinterlands, especially in Africa and Asia… They noticed that there are few remote areas in certain countries where a sizable section of the world population was outside the banking fold. Therefore, many international agencies and national governments were making all out efforts to take banking to the doorsteps of financially excluded people. They have set their objective to reach these people with minimum cost and enable them to transact all types of Banking.
Define Success with Ragunandhan
Not that he did not have any failures. He accepted successes and failures with equanimity. That is yet another quality of an entrepreneur. What he has achieved so far are the results of hard work and commitment. To be a successful entrepreneur one should have a clear vision as to what he or she wants to achieve. That ‘Vision’ should be backed by a strong commitment. Once Vision and commitment are separated, success would elude him. That was Ragunandhan’s belief… Once a person pursues success, he must have strong commitment, and should be ready for hard work
Future Panoramas
The company has a plan to enable the banks to achieve the goal of Universal Financial Inclusion as found in the World Bank’s Agenda 2020. The concept branchless banking is to bridge the gulf between the banked and unbanked world. This they wanted to achieve with the help of their products. They have plans to come out with Product upgrades for Bank-Genie, with new features. Currently, the company has the plan to improve their security features, non-human interface, small-ticket payment acceptance, customized Bank-Genie device with more security and ease of transacting; analytics engine to provide banks with insights on customer behavior and patterns. Apart from all these, products on the anvil are new applications for the financial services segments – a minimalistic core banking application, a block chain product for the remittances which will be in a P2P payment mode.
The company also intends to expand their services further to Africa; especially to East Africa. They look forward to expanding to Uganda, Rwanda, and Tanzania also. Bank-Genie Pte Ltd has also planned to extend their services to other countries like Cambodia, Vietnam, and Philippines. The horizon is very vast and Bank-Genie is on an expedition with passion.
Ragunandhan’s Advice for Young Entrepreneurs
Ragunandhan asserts that an entrepreneur’s journey is never smooth; they must face adverse circumstances many a time; but challenges should make them more motivated. He said, “Focus on the dream you need to achieve, work for it as you are the creator of your future and believe in yourself. Admit the fact that you are the role model for yourself. So, let your actions motivate others to dream more, learn more and do more in their lives to achieve more.”
Ragunandhan Senthil Kumar: A Trailblazer of the Future Banking
