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The Immigrant to Fintech Billionaire Path | Rohit Arora, Biz2X
10 Plays5 days ago
How did Rohit Arora build a $100 million ARR fintech SaaS platform without raising venture capital while facilitating over $2 billion in SME loans?
Discover the untold story of Biz2Credit's journey from marketplace to hidden unicorn disrupting America's small business lending crisis. In this episode, Rohit Arora, CEO and Co-founder of Biz2Credit and Biz2X, reveals how he transformed from a Deloitte consultant into one of America's most successful fintech entrepreneurs.
Starting as a simple marketplace in 2007, Biz2Credit evolved into a lending powerhouse by pioneering partnerships with hedge funds, leveraging regulatory arbitrage, and building proprietary AI-powered underwriting systems. Rohit shares candid insights about bootstrapping a $100+ million ARR SaaS business, expanding across the US, India, and Middle East, and preparing for a potential $15 billion IPO in 2027. He discusses how Trump's tariffs are creating new opportunities in SME lending, why traditional banks are losing the fintech battle, and how agentic AI is revolutionizing credit decisioning.
In this conversation with host Akshay Datt, Rohit also offers contrarian takes on venture capital, cross-border fintech regulation, and why India's conservative approach is limiting innovation compared to the Middle East's progressive framework.
Key highlights from this episode include how Rohit Arora built Biz2Credit into America's leading SME lending platform without traditional VC funding, strategic lessons from partnering with hedge funds and creating special purpose vehicles for lending operations, Biz2X's evolution into a global SaaS platform serving major banks like Citibank and HSBC with $100+ million in annual recurring revenue, insights on navigating cross-border fintech expansion across US, India, and Middle East markets with different regulatory frameworks, the impact of Trump's tariffs on small business lending demand and how it's creating new market opportunities, and Rohit's vision for agentic AI transforming lending workflows and his plans for going public in 2027 with a potential $15+ billion valuation.
#SME lendingfintech #VC #SaaS #unicorn #crossborderfintech #agenticAIv#hedgefund #lending
Disclaimer: The views expressed are those of the speaker, not necessarily the channel
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Transcript
Introduction to Founders
00:00:00
Speaker
My name is Rovay Taroda. I'm a co-founder and CEO of Vistocredit.
00:00:16
Speaker
Rohit, welcome to the Founder Thesis Podcast. and Let me start by asking you to give a short intro. ah Who is Rohit? What is Biz2x? What have you built? Biz2x, you know, we are a digital lending fintech headquarter out of New York.
Biz2x Overview and Origins
00:00:33
Speaker
We have two sides to the business lending.
00:00:36
Speaker
sites to the SMEs which we do and predominantly focus in the US markets and then we have our platform Business Based 2x where we provide our technology, our data analytics tools as well as our AI, Agentec AI based offerings now to a large number of financial institutions as well as ah players like major payment processors, payroll companies, insurance companies, so anybody who's dealing in the SMB space.
00:01:03
Speaker
And that part of the business we have in US, Middle East, in UAE and Saudi markets, as well as in India also. Let's start with the the lending business. So the lending business is what you originally started in the US. How did an Indian end up starting a lending business in the US?
00:01:19
Speaker
How did you pull that off? And that too, it's like such a regulated space and all. so So, basically, when me and my brother, we were in like, you know, I moved to US in 2003 and had moved two years earlier than
Impact of Smartphone Era on Biz2x
00:01:36
Speaker
me. and we This was like for job, for employment. You you got a job there.
00:01:41
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. So for... for job and you know but but but we were very clear that we were gonna set up our own you know like a startup especially with the internet economy was coming back after the dot-com bus so the idea was to look into some of these opportunities and then when ah Steve Jobs launched the first smartphone in 2007 it was very clear that now you know things will totally change because instead of people sitting behind a laptop or or a desktop, now people will have first time internet in their
Understanding SME Credit Challenges
00:02:17
Speaker
hands. Because prior to that in US, people had Blackberries and some of these you know phones with basic email capabilities, but there was nothing
00:02:28
Speaker
Like, yeah you know, where you could browse the net or you could do everything a phone. You didn't need a, like a fixed device anymore. So that was a very big, you know, I would say aha moment for us. And then, and then living in New York, working and living in New York, we also figured out that, you know, small businesses were underserved in that market, even in a market like US where access to credit and credit availability historically has been one of the highest.
00:02:56
Speaker
And they have the best capital markets in the world and the most sophisticated one, but still that was a gap. So we said, like, how do we marry the advent of smartphone with, you know, solving a problem, which at scale could not be done in the past without having a having a technology platform. And that's how the idea came around in late 2007 or early 2008.
Market Strategy and Partnerships
00:03:21
Speaker
We started the company sometime in early 2008 in New York itself. And our big other finding was that, you know, businesses have five big touch points, payroll payments, you know, filing taxes, doing their marketing stuff and then managing the growth you know kind of stuff.
00:03:44
Speaker
and And this is, I'm talking about pre-Fintech or pre-API eras. But we figured out that very quickly that you you know for these businesses, because business owners are normally very busy people, they don't have time to you know because you know look for access to credit while at the same point of time you know credit is their cash flow or their bloodline. you know but Cash flow is bloodline. Without capital, they cannot operate. They have to pay to their suppliers, vendors, employees, everybody all the time.
00:04:13
Speaker
And unlike unlike consumer you know businesses need credit on a day-to-day basis you know to run and operate their businesses so we said how do we go and you know fill out this gap and that's how the whole idea on best credit came and then initially two three years we were just a marketplace where we we were matching business owners with lenders and other folks and then after that we also figured out that you know if we want to improve the execution piece then you know we'll have to have
00:04:45
Speaker
a mechanism where we also control the actual flow of funds. And then we actually came up with a very unique value proposition where we got initially, this was in 2011, 2012, some of the hedge funds, which were based on New York and also credit funds to partner with us, where we said that we'll take the actual underwriting, final underwriting decision.
00:05:07
Speaker
And then we will actually, you know, fund them through this third party money. And then, you know, keep managing these portfolios from a risk perspective, collection perspective and everything.
Effects of COVID-19 on Biz2x
00:05:20
Speaker
So that was actually a very big innovation in the market because traditionally people thought that if you have to lend, then you need to have your own balance sheet. You need to have your own, you know, ways to, you know, just do it.
00:05:32
Speaker
And that was from a regulatory aspect also. It helps us not to be over-regulated because one, we were not using any retail deposit or money. And secondly, we were not the lender, final lender of record.
00:05:44
Speaker
And then, you know, and that started happening. And then over time, you know, the adoption of digital became bigger. And then, you know, fast forward, COVID came along and after COVID, you know, the growth has been very, very high because, you know, obviously things have moved so so much digital now that, you know, that's how, you know, the growth has happened. And now with the advent of AI,
00:06:07
Speaker
and data play and everything, my view is that it's going to get even bigger and better. So when you started the marketplace, was that regulated or you can just start saying that find a like say Paisa Bazaar, Policy Bazaar, all of these are like say selling insurance policies not of their own. So probably it's more of a marketing company ah that they have created. So was it something similar that what you created was essentially a marketing company? Yeah, yeah so in US also at that point of time, the marketplace was such a New concept that regulation was not there. And US, unlike India, you know a lot of the financial services regulation is state by state. It's not federal.
00:06:45
Speaker
okay So there are states where they will regulate you more. And then there are states where they don't regulate you much because they want to attract more businesses. So regulatory reg regime is also a source of arbitrage in that country, unlike India, where you know it's it's mostly federally regulated only.
00:07:05
Speaker
So that's why it was not, there was not a very high level of regulation. Obviously there was basic regulation which had come in, especially after the mortgage meltdown and everything because what people didn't want is that, you know, non-serious actors or, you know, fraudsters to be there.
00:07:21
Speaker
But it was not as regulated as if you were a bank, you know, kind of a stuff where, you know, you needed all kinds of licenses it toqueview ears and There was examination by the, you know, various, you know, like Federal Reserve offices and all that kind of stuff. So that way it was less regulated.
00:07:40
Speaker
And then since we or were also not touching any depositors money, because still you don't touch depositors money, there'll be less regulation, you know, than more.
Technological Advancements in Lending
00:07:50
Speaker
And I think the other thing in in a country like US or like India is that the capital markets are very innovative and dynamic. So they like trying new things and that's where they let people you experiment with things, you know, unlike in India. and And that has led to a lot of this growth over time and a lot of understanding also show that, you know, how these securities work, markets work, and then, you know, and a lot of regulatory stuff actually comes
00:08:16
Speaker
by like from rating agencies and all that, you know, when they rate you, because if you're if you're not compliant or your portfolios are not doing well, then your rating will go down. Okay. The ah marketplace model would essentially assess the credit score. Like somebody would sign up, submit their whatever ah number, unique identifying number through which you would get the credit score and then you would pass on the credit score to lenders who want to lend and they would take the decision on do I want to lend or not and at what rate, et etc. That's how it worked.
00:08:45
Speaker
It is a little different than that because yes, credit score plays a part, but since this is all B2B lending, so there, you know, you have to be also looking at the underlying, you know, business asset, how their cash flow is happening, you know, what their ah historical financials look like, how their projections look like, you know, what but kind of business they are in, how good the operator of the business is, you know.
00:09:06
Speaker
how much extent Does an SME owner have the time to share all this information with you? It's sounds not a question of sharing the information because now the good thing is that they don't have to share all that information. They have to just connect their like let's say they ah digital business bank account and then we can take all that data with the permission of the business owner ah with their consent and can run all kinds of... a all kind of analytics analysis. And then we also have other third party databases that we can access to you know fill out the rest of the gaps.
00:09:37
Speaker
So I think the benefit of now digital is that as a business owner, you don't have to give us much of information. You have to just give us some level of consents and then after that you know most of the data is is now pretty much available and then the machine learning and ai make sense of it now you know in terms of analyzing it you know ability to go and you know you know do things in a way that were not possible earlier but when you were running the marketplace at that time you had all of these pieces in place Those are still very early days, you know, but I think you like at that point of time, business owners used to upload their bank statements and then you know, we had a team of people who used to like look at it.
00:10:19
Speaker
ah So obviously, from those days, things have changed quite dramatically, you know, online connectivity was already there, you know, in 2012 onwards. So that's where we could So that's where we could you know look at it and code done could be done. But but it it was still very early days.
00:10:39
Speaker
Over time, it improved quite a
Transition to Fulfillment Marketplace
00:10:41
Speaker
lot. So like initially, there was a lot more manual work. But then also, at that point of time, business owners had to just upload their you know last six months of you know bank statements or a year of bank statement. And then with their consent, we could pull their...
00:10:54
Speaker
text data from IRS and all that was all was was available. But now it has become very seamless, fully integrated, fully automated. That wasn't the case earlier. Okay, got it, got it. Okay, so till 2011, you were just a pass-through. ah You were like an introducer.
00:11:12
Speaker
You were not responsible for the decision or for the collection, if I understand correctly. So basically, we were, yeah, we were a pass-through, but we were still scorecarding all these, you know, businesses because we were collecting all the data data and everything.
00:11:26
Speaker
And then the final decision was being made by third-party lenders, and then they were responsible for servicing and collection of these portfolios. But I guess by then you would have built enough data to get into lending yourself.
00:11:41
Speaker
Like the advantage you had as a marketplace was the access to data, which would have allowed you to create stronger decision-making algorithms. Yeah, yeah. So that was the biggest benefit that you know we could see all the all the data, including you know the customer behavior data and customer used to come back to us for more access to credit and everything because they were getting more choices.
00:12:03
Speaker
so So we could actually you know see all the data and also part of the performance data and everything. And that gave us a lot of you know like insights into how to build the right kind of lending products. you know Okay, interesting.
00:12:17
Speaker
And essentially you were leaving money on the table by not lending yourself. It was not a question of leaving the money on the table. I think we were not controlling the customer experience fully end to end.
00:12:28
Speaker
So I think the key was that from being an origination marketplace, we became a fulfillment marketplace. So like, I think a a good example is Amazon, where Amazon, if you go and order on Amazon, while there a third party sellers who will sell to you, but Amazon ensures logistics, delivery, and and and they handle the payment.
00:12:48
Speaker
So we took the same model and we said, okay, money is fungible. Money can come from anywhere, but how the money is delivered, how the money is collected back, you know, is there ability to give multiple products? Is there ability to, you know, give these customers an insight into their own businesses and all that? I said, let's, let's control that because that's, that's the most important piece to enhance the customer experience and customer satisfaction,
Innovative Financing Solutions
00:13:13
Speaker
you know.
00:13:13
Speaker
But what was broken, like the US financial system is very, very mature. I'm sure all the lenders on the marketplace would have had very mature processes and like like but processes were mature processes were mature the only thing was that ah two things were the one it was like you know it's like every lender wanted their own you know set of you know documentation which was 60 70 percent overlapping but at least 25 30 percent was still ah you know based on their own criteria and everything secondly it was
00:13:46
Speaker
lenders at that point of time had not really started by investing in digital technologies. So, so they were still far behind and to give that experience to the customer base. And then the third thing is that if the customer was looking for renewal or they were looking for, you know, top ups and everything, then again, they to through the same process again and again, which obviously once you have established a track record, you know, then it should become a lot more seamless, you know.
00:14:12
Speaker
Okay. Got it. Got it. Interesting. So, Now, the way to solve this problem, you want to lend without taking customer deposit, is to then have hedge funds as customers.
00:14:23
Speaker
Hedge funds were the one over initially. Because what had happened at that point of time was because of the mortgage meltdown in the market, Fed had cut the interest rates to historical lows. So lot of investors were looking for yield out there. So one part of the yield was to invest in equities, but the other part was also to invest in debt.
00:14:40
Speaker
Now debt, you could put money in in like a fixed deposit or or some debt funds because the returns were like 0.5% or um ah less than 1%. So that's where a lot of these hedge funds and credit funds were looking for some returns.
00:14:57
Speaker
And that's why they started coming to us because they said that this is a good asset class. This has little correlation to the consumer was was low. And then their ability to go and, you know, ah you know lend meaningful amounts of money and then earn good returns became very attractive over time.
00:15:15
Speaker
What was the return profile like? Like how much was the amount earned from a customer? Basically, they were making 0.5 or less than 1% and then on our platform, they were making like, you know, close to 9 to 10%.
00:15:27
Speaker
So obviously, that was a very big, you know, delta between the returns that they were getting. This 9 to 10% is after accounting for NPA, like default and all?
00:15:37
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Wow. Okay.
Customer Acquisition and Investor Relations
00:15:41
Speaker
9 to 10% net of ah fees and defaults and everything. and And what was your earning in it? What percentage were you able to earn as fees?
00:15:50
Speaker
So it was ah two to three percent you know actually. And then the rest was going because obviously the investors were taking the bigger risk. you know children And was this better than what you were earning as a marketplace, this two three percent it was but It was somewhat better, but I think what what happened because of that is the customer experience got better. so So you could put more volume, you could add new products, you could go out and quote more business because then everybody knew that you know we could take that final funding call and funding decision, which wasn't the case earlier.
00:16:25
Speaker
And that also helped us to, you know, ah just get even more data because we because our whole promise was that if you give us more data, then we'll be able to give you better products, finer pricing.
00:16:36
Speaker
And this was also a start of, you know, getting these products generated and, you know, getting leverage from banks and everything. Because then that juiced up the returns even further for the investors without charging more rates to be to the borrower.
00:16:51
Speaker
And then over time, then it became a win-win situation for everyone. Okay. Interesting. What kind of new products were you able to offer? Give me an example. So we were able to do, you know, like working capital against the credit card receivables because U S is is an economy where digital payments are extremely high credit card usage is extremely high.
00:17:11
Speaker
So we were able to do variable payment, very repayment products where instead of the SMEs sending out us money every month as a fixed EMI, you know they could have a variable cash flow and they could pay back you know based on that.
00:17:27
Speaker
And that could come from settlement of the credit card payments. you know it it It could come from against their invoices, you know, so streamlining the invoice factoring products, you know, because prior to going digital, every invoice used to be, you know, physically uploaded and verified then, you know, and then 80 or 85% of that could go to the of the borrower. then after two months when the payment was coming in, then you again notify the borrower.
00:17:55
Speaker
So imagine putting all this workflow fully digital and making it self-service. so So we were able to launch these new kind of products and the other innovation was that we were also able to say that why do we need to collect one payment a month? Why can't we collect micro payments?
00:18:09
Speaker
which could be on a daily or or a weekly or a bi-weekly basis. And that will give us give customers, especially SMBs, more handle on their cash flow and also create a better outcome for everyone, including the investors, because it also reduces the risk for the investors and also boost their return also.
00:18:29
Speaker
Okay, this is called revenue-based financing, right? Revenue-based financing, yeah. Okay, so you were able to launch revenue-based financing. This ah ah structure with the hedge funds, did it operate through like creating a new entity, like say a special purpose vehicle like an s SPV? Yeah, so we created a special purpose vehicle that was registered.
00:18:50
Speaker
than with various states you know because then uh in usd the lending is a state subject so uh so then we registered with states state regulators and everybody else and then you know and then this s spv was dealing with the money part with hedge funds and credit funds this spv like every hedge fund you had a new spv or there was one s spv for all So we had this like lending entity was one but we had different s SPVs with different hedge funds because they didn't want any co-mingling of the funds and also to keep them bankruptcy remote and everything.
00:19:26
Speaker
So that way we had separate s SPVs while the lending entity which was lending the money across multiple states you know was the same entity which was being subject to regulatory stuff with the states.
00:19:40
Speaker
okay okay okay okay got it interesting okay so you know what how did i want to understand a bit about how you did the sales and there are two types of sales which you did one is uh smes getting them interested in coming to the platform taking a loan from you and the second is the sales to these h1s you can go in either order but what did you learn about sales by getting both these set of customers in So SMEs we did because as as I said, the smartphone came in and you know it was easy to easier to discover SEO by then.
Sustainable Growth and Capital Strategy
00:20:18
Speaker
Search engine optimization had become pretty effective channel for us. And then we also started partnering with large payroll and payment companies in US you know actually because they had also started realizing the value of it by then.
00:20:32
Speaker
You know, that how to get that, you know, you know also started, you know, offering access to credit to their client because the US was coming out of a big, brutal recession at that point of time.
00:20:44
Speaker
And everybody was hungry to borrow more money and grow their businesses. So from a timing aspect, it was good. And secondly, you know, ah from a from a marketing aspect, to you know, a combination between direct to SMBs, you know, using ah both paid search and and send and search engine optimization.
00:21:04
Speaker
Because by like early 2012, 2013, you know, those products and offerings are becoming very mature in the US market, actually.
00:21:15
Speaker
That how you did your SEO, how you did your, you know paid search, how did you target the customer base, what you did with that. And then you know and then you know also partnering with large companies which had an inherent SMB base. you know They were interested because they were also getting a rev share from us. but But more than the rev share, they were more keen to you know help their customers to grow because they knew that if their customers grew, then they will grow with them.
00:21:43
Speaker
so So we did that and then on the hedge fund and credit fund side, especially with credit funds and all that, once we had put out a track record for a year, know then and and that was a big reason why we headquartered the business in New York because you know New York is the is it macco capital in the world.
00:22:03
Speaker
So lot of money comes there very quickly you know globally. so So it's easy to meet then these kind of investors if you are in New York. and go and you know you know do a lot of work with them.
00:22:16
Speaker
So one thing led to the other. And then you know and then as and these were short term revenue based financing like a year kind of stuff. So you could prove your you know track report very quickly. And once the track report is proven, then people will come for that kind of return.
00:22:32
Speaker
Okay. Okay. ah But, you know, I want to kind of understand deal making from you. You have obviously done very high ticket size kind of deal making, be it with these hedge funds, or I believe you've raised more than $50 million dollars for the business so far. So how did you crack those deals with the VCs? Any kind of ah lessons you can extract from it and share in terms of the art of the team. From an equity capital perspective, we have raised close to 65, 70 million dollars, know, and the reason we didn't raise more money was not that we couldn't raise it because we didn't need it because we built a long-term sustainable, you know, EBITDA positive, you know, profitable business, you know, actually.
00:23:18
Speaker
ah So the idea was that from on the equity side, we really wanted to focus on, you know, first like creating the right product, not being in a rush to raise a lot of capital too quickly because otherwise then you make lot of, you know, mistakes and then, you know, that capital, you become a prisoner to that, you know, capital, you know, raise.
00:23:39
Speaker
And then you are spending more time just trying to, you know, just like answer your investors, then trying to build a core business. So, so we first built a business, which was solving a lot of pain points. see And actually, as we're starting from the name, like this to credit, which was very clear that what we were doing.
00:23:54
Speaker
to something like, you know, creating the right platform, technology, focused a lot on collections and performance, but that was important that, you know, it's not just lending money is easy business, it's getting the money back, you know, having the right channel partnerships and and everything else.
00:24:11
Speaker
so So we did that for the for a few years very in a very focused way and then we raised the money from the right kind of investors, you know especially from Silicon Valley because they were starting to understand the opportunity and also the scale of the business because us you know the just in the market,
00:24:33
Speaker
size is like three to four trillion dollars, you know, actually. So obviously, it's a big market, unorganized, you know, not any big one or two players out there.
00:24:45
Speaker
So it made a lot of sense for us to, you know, go and then raise equity capital. but But more than just equity capital, we also kept adding new debt players on our marketplace because, you know, that was important that, you know, we had a lot of liquidity because for us, money is a raw material.
00:25:03
Speaker
So we need to have that in order to you know keep pumping up our platform business and you know and running with it. So from what I make out then, your deal-making philosophy focus on solving problems and timing.
Global Expansion and SaaS Offering
00:25:20
Speaker
Like these are the two key things. like Yeah, and yeah yeah i think I think you have to solve problems and you have to play that whole long-term. There's a saying in Wall Street whether you're playing a short-term greed or a long-term greed and that kind of stuff.
00:25:34
Speaker
So I think that long-term mindset is very important in this business. and you know And not like, just like, you know, there's not a a business where you can, you know, flip it, you know, like, like, like, it's not like you're building out just a technology which will go viral and we will start using it and then you can, and you sell it.
00:25:54
Speaker
It takes time to build credibility. It takes time to build track record. And you're dealing with lot of money, you know, so obviously people will hold you to higher standards. So I think focus on corporate governance, focus on, you know, the right metrics, you know, deliver what you are promising, you know, that I think is very, very important because, you know, because once you build the trust, then it's very easy to scale the business. So it will take few years initially in a business like this, but if people are focused, then they can grow the business. well
00:26:24
Speaker
Okay. ah Was there credit risk, ah you know was there like stress on your portfolio during COVID? Initially, there was a bit of stress, but then, you know, US did an unprecedented thing with releasing such a big fiscal stimulus, especially for businesses, because US had realized that, you know, more than consumer businesses needed all the help during COVID.
00:26:46
Speaker
And they were the ones who were going to be the main driver for again, for job growth, as well as, you know, the economy to keep running during COVID. So US did a very smart thing by like, you know, channelizing almost 60, 70% of the, of the money that they released in the market, you know, went to help small and mid-sized businesses compared to, you know, consumers in, unlike in other countries where, you know, there a lot more, uh these portfolios and that also helps you know small businesses to weather the storm and actually they came out more strongly out of that and okay okay so like you didn't see any impact on your portfolio so ah so initially there was a bit of impact for a month or two but then it recovered very quickly and and then there was not much of an impact in
00:27:37
Speaker
Okay, okay, okay. What's your loan book today or what's your AUM, m Assets Under Management? See, we actually don't retain much on our balance sheet. So technically, we don't have an AUM concept or what we have is there how much we...
00:27:51
Speaker
No, but these SPVs combined, like that's what I'm asking. Yeah, SPVs combined, you know, at any any in point of time, it it's in few billions of dollars, you know, actually. Wow.
00:28:03
Speaker
Yeah, ah but but then they keep replenishing very quickly that these are mostly short-term ones, you it's not very long-term, you know, we don't do long-term financing. And then the idea is that, you know, we keep adding new products or new verticals and then, you know, and keep adding on it. But then money also comes back very quickly.
00:28:22
Speaker
right you know And that can also get redeployed. So there's a couple of billion dollars ah worth of loans that you're managing. Yeah. Wow.
00:28:32
Speaker
And this is all to US SMEs? These are all to US SMEs, absolutely. Okay, so tell me about the cross-border fintech clay then. What was the birth of it? So we started company Biz2X six, seven years back. But even before we started the company, we were by like 2017, 2018, lot of banks and other financial institutions were approaching us across the globe. You know, because they were also, because by then a lot of financial institutions have realized that, you know, they have to go and provide some kind of digital experience to their client base.
00:29:07
Speaker
And then in the US, some of our first partner was Citibank and HSBC and some large local banks. And once that started happening, then we set up a new entity, Biz2x, to focus on this part of the business.
00:29:19
Speaker
So basically, people saw that you're giving digital loans and you're giving great customer experience. And they told you that sell us your technology. Yeah, white level your technology to us. Absolutely. so So we also thought that was a good diversification from us because till that point of time we were just in the lending business and and booking fee based revenue from the lending business.
00:29:43
Speaker
After that we said that this is also a great segue into you know and also offer products which we cannot offer as a non-bank, even like government guarantee programs or the other credit card products and all that, which are traditionally done by banks in US.
00:29:57
Speaker
So we said this is a good way to also provide that to our customer base and also diversify from being just a you know lender to the SMEs one way or the other.
00:30:07
Speaker
And then our play also was that, you know, if we have access to more data, then we'll get smarter because by then, know, machine learning and all that had already started. So the idea was the more data we have, the smarter we become, you know, the more we can do out it.
00:30:22
Speaker
So like, say, Citibank, HSBC, they would do like a SaaS deal with you. They would give you an annual subscription fees and you would give them a white-label platform which would power their SME lending.
00:30:36
Speaker
Yeah, annual subscription fee and in certain cases, annual subscription fee plus certain BIPs on the portfolio also, you know, and then we were the ones who were were deploying all the technology and everything while they were in this, you know, situation taking the final underwriting decision and they were the ones who were servicing these loans. So we were not servicing these loans.
00:30:56
Speaker
Right. You were just a technology provider here and you were probably... Technology, scorecards, insights into the customer behavior, customer psyche, everything. But this data ah which was feeding their models would be proprietary to them, right? they They wouldn't be comfortable sharing it with you for you to learn and build your algorithms. So if we had actually by then built out of our own models. So they were leaning on our models also because traditionally their models were more suited for offline you know kind of business, not for online and like cash flow analytics or cash flow driven businesses.
00:31:31
Speaker
So I think the difference became was that you know we had more access to data than them because they're only... data for the client base. Now we had access to so many more data sets. Okay. okay So when your model was doing the decisioning, that data would be obviously available to you. What what does the model look like? Can you help me understand what how does a decisioning model work?
00:31:54
Speaker
No, so the decisioning model has more than, yeah you know, 2000 plus different now parameters, you know, depending on the kind of, you know, because now we have made it global, not just US based.
00:32:07
Speaker
So depending on the country, depending on the data sources, depending on you know you know, what kind of business you are in, you know, what kind of other, you know, channels that you're looking to, you know, you know address.
00:32:20
Speaker
ah So depending on all that, so ah predominantly a lot of it is still cash flow data, but within that we've also divided and subdivided it into other, you know, you know channels also.
00:32:33
Speaker
So the idea now is that, you know, how do we go and, you know, look at it. And also we now look at source from where customer is coming, let's say day if they're coming through payment processor, then we can get all the historical and on ongoing going forward payment data, if they come from payroll provider, then we can see that, you know, how much payroll they've run in the past, how many times they had a cash flow issue in running a payroll compared to, you know, where they are now and what they can do.
00:32:57
Speaker
So that's how we were, that's how these models have developed over time. And they're very modular and very flexible also. What are the ah answers which a model gives you? Does it just say a yes, no, yes, give alone, no, don't give alone or what? No, no, it's like it starts there, but it also then rank order is there in terms of risk, pricing, term that you can do, what kind of products, you know, and then it also gives, it also calculates the probability of default, you know, PD ratios and everything else also.
00:33:30
Speaker
Okay. okay Okay. Okay. Interesting. like Like how much amount can be given? What is the period for which this amount is? What amount of period, whether it's secured or just based on cash flow?
00:33:43
Speaker
what is the What are the other you know attributes of that loan that you know one needs to you know take into account? Let's say if if the SME owner has multiple businesses or multiple entities, do we need to put a lien on them you know or just on one? yeah Whether we can...
00:34:03
Speaker
in like first position or second position in certain cases. So it calculates everything, it prices it, it also gives you out the kind of products you can do.
00:34:15
Speaker
So did you find selling this SaaS tool harder than... selling to hedge funds or ah like, you know again, I'm trying to... This is a different selling because this has much longer life, like, you know, decision-making cycles because obviously once a lender takes your platform, then they are also committed to it for years and years and they're literally running their business on your platform. So, which is a big decision.
00:34:42
Speaker
you know but But at the same point of time, you know we also started now providing them with a lot of origination, volume, insights and everything. So that makes their decisions a lot easier in a way.
Agentic AI and Virtual CFO Services
00:34:53
Speaker
So how are you selling? what What's your customer acquisition strategy? Because this is like very high value kind of a... This is high value. So we have a separate team for Biz2x, which just focuses on enterprise sales, enterprise ah customers. you know They go to trade shows. They will go and...
00:35:10
Speaker
meet with lot of customers, they do a lot of solutioning piece. Then we work with big strategy consulting firms like McKinsey and BCGs of the world now to offer this kind of a solution bigger institutions and clients also.
00:35:26
Speaker
actually Okay. Okay. Okay. Interesting. I noticed a trend that a lot of your sales happens through strategic partnerships. ah Yes. Like like ah through payroll providers, through consulting companies. yeah what is the Yes. What are some best practices for onboarding partners who can sell for you?
00:35:51
Speaker
I think the best practices are one, you need to have alignment of your you know purpose and vision. You know, the second piece is that, you know, you need to know that, you know, what's the value or what's the pain point that you're solving jointly.
00:36:06
Speaker
The third piece you know, looking into the looking into the aspect that, you know, how do you go and, you know, get some of these, you know, installations or or implementation done in a time bound fashion.
00:36:20
Speaker
And then the fourth is, you know, how how can you help these institutions then to grow their own business, you know, so Okay, okay. Essentially, I guess that would be the starting point, right? Like, how can I help my partner to grow?
00:36:35
Speaker
Absolutely. How do I help my partner to grow? What do I do with them? are we helping them to, you know, grow their business right way? Are we helping them to increase their valuation? Does it help them put to look good in front of their investor groups and all that, you know?
00:36:52
Speaker
So the Biz2x product would be called an LMS, a loan management system? Basically, it's a it's a full technology stack that starts now with agentic CRM like loan CRM, then the LOS, the loan origin origination system, then the loan management system, and then the overall collection as well as portfolio monitoring and and pricing.
00:37:20
Speaker
Okay. Okay. There are many systems rolled into one. Yes. Many systems rolled into one. Exactly. Who are the other companies who are offering such a comprehensive ah ah solution? and so See, in different countries, we have different kind of companies, you know, who are offering it. But I think where we are getting differentiated is twofold. One,
00:37:40
Speaker
Since we also run a lending business, we we have a lot of now data and expertise from that side. So it's like Amazon AWS kind of a model where you know Amazon builds everything for themselves first, test it out.
00:37:51
Speaker
So we are doing same thing with Agentic AI where europe we are testing all a lot of these Agentic AI agents for our own business to credit business, both on the sales side, underwriting side. and collection side and then we are going to deploy it back onto a platform for Biz2x for our clients.
00:38:07
Speaker
The benefit of that approach is that one, we are not learning at the expense of the client. The second thing is clients ah like it because you know they get to know the best practices you know from us you know because that's what they're really looking to do. And then the third thing is that We are constantly innovating, we are constantly you know investing money into our own business and and we are also ahead of the curve in that sense because we yeah are already understanding the problems, the pain points, you know of which typically otherwise if you're just a software provider or a platform provider then you'll wait for your customer to come in or you will release the next version and all that kind of stuff so in this day and age now you know the version concept has totally vanished you know it's like it has to be constant improvement constant updates and you typically don't charge your customers for that i think the other innovation we brought in is that you know we don't have a concept of change requests so we are saying that
00:39:03
Speaker
because this is standard platform, this is very configurable, you can build stuff on top of it and at the same point of time we'll keep updating, we'll keep adding new features and then you if you're on the platform you will get
Future Growth and Public Listing Plans
00:39:15
Speaker
it. you know actually It doesn't matter you took the platform three years back or five years back,
00:39:20
Speaker
And a lot of it is freemium kind of a model where, you know, a lot of these new features you can use for free. And then if you want, ah but you know, the next version of it or, or a higher, you know, duty stuff, then you're actually, you know, paying for it.
00:39:34
Speaker
So customers like it because then they don't have to worry about, you know, that are they being left behind and everything. I think the other thing that I like now and more and more is that our expertise in digital acquisition side of the business, you know, because we have become very good at that.
00:39:48
Speaker
know, how do you market? you know How do you market to to new client base? How do you nurture your existing client base? How do you you know go about you know nurturing the overall you know yeah you know the ecosystem play? How do you create these kind of closed loop networks, you know which which really helps to but gather more data and also give better insights to the customers or themselves?
00:40:16
Speaker
And then how do you also, because since we deal with the the capital markets also, and we understand the investor psyche, So a lot of these, you know whether you're a bank or NBFC, you're dealing with debt investors, you're dealing with capital markets all the time, then you don't have to worry about that piece because we are dealing with that and we understand and we can actually come and you know be more proactive in doing this.
00:40:42
Speaker
especially right now with the agentic AI we are doing that you know we are being very aggressively investing in our own business we are working with a lot of partners we are going out and you know solving a lot of these real life problems and then also educating people and also sharing that information back with our Biz2x partners and clients so that they can go and take those learnings and can actually either report it back to their equity investors, debt investors.
00:41:10
Speaker
If they're publicly traded, they can you know communicate it to the markets. If they're privately held, then they can talk to their you know equity shareholders, but also to the debt guys also because that's an important constituency for them.
00:41:23
Speaker
So I think doing all these different things you know really helps us and and helps them. And it also creates a cycle of innovation, which is an ongoing cycle. What's the... ah What's an example of problems that Agentic AI is solving?
00:41:39
Speaker
how so i think I think Agentic AI can solve three or four kinds of problems very well. One is your customer onboarding, handling a lot of the customer inquiries, you know which are pretty, I won't say are standard, but you can actually make them very smartly answered, you know and that creates a level of consistency and uniformity. you know So that is actually very good use case for Agentic on the customer side.
00:42:03
Speaker
I think on underwriting and pre-underwriting, the good thing is that you know generating a lot of these credit assessment memos and you know looking at multiple data sets, which underwriters normally look manually because these are clean structured data.
00:42:17
Speaker
So it's it's a lot easier for agentic AI to go in and you know start looking at that you know pretty quickly. you know on there Doesn't the model do that? What is the role of Agenda? No, models have to be
Challenges for Indian SMEs and Strategic Advice
00:42:30
Speaker
trained. See the problem right now in the whole AI space is that while there are these large language models, one, they're very expensive to run.
00:42:37
Speaker
They're extremely inefficient and and without the clean data and without the ability to define the outcomes, you know those models like running and administrating those models is like 10x more expensive than i employing people, you know, actually. you have to have that ability to narrow it down, you know, and then ah train it with real, real life data and also monitor the outcomes, you know, because there could be lot of hallucinations and, you know, other things that could happen.
00:43:06
Speaker
So I think from that aspect, it's good. I think the third aspect where it gets even more powerful is ongoing monitoring. Because once you have done the deal and and the customer is paying on time, if they're not paying on time, obviously it gets you know pulled up quickly. But even if they're paying on time, you know how their cash flow is looking, is it deteriorating, how the overall business environment, a great example right now is that you know you have these tariffs coming in.
00:43:31
Speaker
And let's say if I have these exporters from India, SME exporters were exporting to US and they are being impacted by these tariffs. you know They could have a great business, but you know now,
00:43:41
Speaker
The problem is that you know they will get impacted. So how do you how do you measure that? So agentic AI can actually do that very quickly, very well, you know can can run all kinds of scenario planning. you know can also and the And the other aspect is we have like a platform known as virtual CFO platform, which actually, you know like it's like literally a CFO sitting with you.
00:44:03
Speaker
They're analyzing everything. They can give you all the insights. they can also And we have so many SMEs globally with us now that we can also benchmark your SME against them. you know If you're in similar space or similar revenue and all that, that you know in which percentile you are, how how to improve it, you know how what are the best practices that you should be doing.
00:44:22
Speaker
Now, that is something very powerful, but doing it with human beings or with credit analysts or with analysts, one is very expensive and not very scalable. So that kind of, you know, um for me, AI is not like just running chat GPT or large language models. It's like building now these small language models, these agents and giving them a very clear cut task of what to do, how to do and almost doing it all the time, 24 by 7, never stopping. Again, this part of the innovation cycle.
00:44:53
Speaker
And then you empower the businesses even more. Okay. This virtual CFO is a free offering. This is a free offering, so we don't charge anything for it right now. you know and but But we have like large companies like MasterCard and some of the other large companies who have also licensed it from us. you know actually And they are giving it out to their client base also. So the more it it goes out, the more data we have, the more data we have, the more you know, customization of, like we can let the businesses just do run a customized, you know, stack on top of it.
00:45:28
Speaker
And then R&M is that, okay, how do we monetize it that we we can offer them better products, you know? So we started with credit, but now we are offering them, you know, experimenting with, you know, insurance products and other products also.
00:45:40
Speaker
So the idea then becomes is that, you know, it becomes a much bigger play and also makes your customer base more sticky, you know, with you. Hmm. Yeah, that's pretty amazing. It's like very high engagement level if you have your virtual C-level. Yeah. i mean because They will actually almost look at it on a daily or a weekly basis and yeah they will even feed in more data into that directly. you interesting interesting what's the ARR for Biz2x it's privately held but it's like it's like pretty healthy it's in tens of millions of dollars you know actually so like I would say 100 million plus kind of stuff 100 million plus yeah and bootstrapped did funds for Biz2x
00:46:21
Speaker
kind hundred million plus error yeah yeah and bootstrapped or did you raise funds for this two x No, so Biz2x is a 100% subsidiary of Biz2Cred itself. so So whatever money we have raised is at the parent level, we didn't raise money separately for Biz2x.
00:46:39
Speaker
Amazing. $100 million ARR SaaS company. And I don't think many people would even be aware that and this is a $100 million ARR SaaS company. So it's easily a unicorn then, like as per how SaaS companies are.
00:46:53
Speaker
Yeah, because our revenues based to cred are very good revenues overall. And then, yes, so from a valuation perspective, it's pretty healthy. i will just put it like that.
00:47:05
Speaker
Amazing. Amazing. What's the average contract value that you have with a bank? Like say a Citi Bank or an HSBC, how much would the ah contract? Anyway, depending from a million dollar to, you know, three and a half, four million dollars, you know, actually.
00:47:18
Speaker
So that's the average contract value. Okay. So what's the road ahead then for both of these businesses? what's your i think the road ahead is that, you know, based on credit business, we are...
00:47:29
Speaker
We
Closing Remarks
00:47:30
Speaker
are very clear we are focusing on the US markets because that's where you know there's a lot of still lot of opportunity. you know like We did a report recently with BCG, which said that you know just in the US itself, the funding gap is still like close to $800 billion a year actually you know on the on the lending side. So we see a lot of activity and action is just increasing.
00:47:52
Speaker
and And with the advent of private credit, it's going to get even better. Biz2x, we have very ambitious plans across the globe. So obviously, US, we are there. We have expanded quite a lot in UAE, in India. Now we are going very aggressive and big in Saudi markets.
00:48:06
Speaker
And we are seeing a lot of traction because you know it's like because platform business with data analytics business, once it's there, then it becomes a flywheel kind of stuff. And the more... clients you have, the more clients want to come. So in UAE, we recently, like, for example, partnered with three of the largest payment processors. Now we have like 90% plus of digital payments data that, you know, we have access to and we can build models, we can run everything on top of it.
00:48:32
Speaker
And then we see more and more traction coming in. India, we have signed up quite a few deals with NVFCs and some banks. And then and now we're also talking to folks like NPCI and all that, you know, to even create a full embedded you know uh you know from from a payment to lending aspect you know kind of stuff also so the idea so we see a lot of opportunity over the next three four years in these three four markets itself and these are large markets you know globally and and we also see that you know with the ai coming in you know cost of developing writing the code or go to market is is is reducing and and having
00:49:12
Speaker
ah massive amount of data sets that we have and even adding more and more data on top of it is really helping us now to you know get a competitive edge in this space, in the AI space also.
00:49:24
Speaker
Amazing. ah Are you looking at a public listing? and Because you're profitable. We are planning to do something in early 2027, you know, In India or in the US?
00:49:37
Speaker
No, no. Most probably, we'll just do it in US itself, either on NASDAQ or NYSE because one, most of our business is still there. And secondly, we find that, you know, the size of IPO and all that we want to bring, you know, think the Indian market well will not be like that attractive for us from a global perspective.
00:49:56
Speaker
What size are you looking at? No. So, so ah you know, in US, what happens is that if you bring out an IPO where your market cap is below $10 billion, dollars then analyst coverage is not very good.
00:50:09
Speaker
So it has to be above that, you know, between, I would say, 15 to 20 billion at least, you you know, market cap, because otherwise then you don't get the right kind of, you know, ah or lift from an IPO.
00:50:21
Speaker
Wow. Incredible. ah Amazing. um Okay. ah I want to get your take on India versus U.S. in terms of the fintech financial regulation industry perspective. You've seen both these markets. Yes.
00:50:36
Speaker
What do you think are the strengths and weaknesses of India? india India is a fantastic digital infrastructure. You know, there's no doubt. And with GST and everything being centralized, so it's easier.
00:50:48
Speaker
I think the challenge in India is the financial, you know, innovation. you know, the regulator is still very, RBI especially, they're very scared of, you know, new age, yeah you know, innovation and thinking. While I think they're doing a lot of work with RBI labs and everything else,
00:51:03
Speaker
But that's more on the technology side. I think as a regulator, you know, my view is that technology will take care of itself. It's more the regulatory mindset and letting people, you know, like having more innovation on the side of, you know, lending piece, especially in the SME space, because that's very important. You know, I think that's where India is lagging behind, not just US, but also Middle East now.
00:51:25
Speaker
And that's where I think they need to improve. their game because yeah you know in India the access to credit especially in the SME space is very hard still and very expensive actually so more than hard it's extremely expensive and I think the idea is that while all the major ingredients are there in terms of credit bureaus in terms of data is there digital infrastructure is fantastic I think the ability to you know like simple things like you know in US we could get rating agencies two, three years back to come and read these portfolios and then insurance companies could start putting in the money.
00:51:58
Speaker
So we have been telling the government of India to do something very similar in this country, you know, that they can unleash lot of insurance money, which is here locally into this space, which will be a win-win. Insurance companies can get better yield on their asset classes.
00:52:11
Speaker
You know, SMEs will get more liquidity. It will generate more employment. You know, the cost of money will go down because insurance money is the most tricky money because of the premiums coming in. But I think that is something that India,
00:52:22
Speaker
as a country has shied away from doing, you know and taking some these more radical steps. And these are not radical anymore, you know, they've become very mainstream, ah you know, in like most of the world now.
00:52:34
Speaker
And in spite of having better digital infrastructure, better adoption, more centralized, you you know you know, play, you know, till till India doesn't take or doesn't open up The mindset on that side, you're not creating that framework. you know A few years back, Neetia had approached us. They wanted to set up a digital lending, you know like B2B entities. you know like Okay, don't take deposits, but B2B like what we did in US markets and then accelerate the overall you know access to credit and lending.
00:53:04
Speaker
But nothing really happened. So but like here, you still have banks and NBFCs who are doing most of the heavy lifting. which is which is okay, but it's not still changing the you know the landscape, the way it should get changed.
00:53:18
Speaker
Does India have a deep enough private credit market? Essentially, in the US, you're in the private credit market, right? the the Most of private credit markets in India are getting deeper by the day. If you see all the AIFs getting set up and even private credit funds. so there and There's a lot of appetite among people to actually deploy money.
00:53:36
Speaker
You know, I think the problem is more on the side of the fact that, you know, the private credit and all that is today still in India is not like as competitive as bank lending. would be Like ah unlike in US where not lot of insurance money has. You think comparative from the borrowers angle?
00:53:53
Speaker
Borrowers, yeah. From a pricing perspective and everything. Okay. What I think big innovation in US a allowed was that was it allowed insurance companies to start investing money in rated you know instruments you know in US. So that where, because once you have insurance money, then the arbitrage between banks and insurance money, actually insurance money is even cheaper than bank money today.
00:54:13
Speaker
And that really helped the whole private credit because now in the US also you have private credit with different stacks. You have at the top, these are insurance companies. Then you have, you know, your insurance company and pension funds. Then you have, you know, non-related securities. Then you get other, and then at the bottom is now hedge funds and all that.
00:54:33
Speaker
But in India, that hasn't happened you know to that extent. While private credit markets in India are audits expanding you know pretty quickly, there's ah and there's a big need for that also.
00:54:45
Speaker
I think because of these regulatory arbitrage banks and LVAC still play a very big role, you know which they should, but not as big as they should be playing.
00:54:59
Speaker
you know compared to the vr You know, the tariff part we haven't discussed yet. That's what I want to discuss. so ah You have seen the SME sector and you have a lot of data about the SME sector in the US specifically. How are the current ah Trump tariffs affecting that?
00:55:19
Speaker
See the Trump tariff is actually both good and bad. So from a good aspect, what what Trump recently did was that he brought out a bill, big, beautiful bill where he you know the tax cuts were memorialized. He also gave a lot of new tax incentives to the small and mid-sized businesses actually in US.
00:55:35
Speaker
To offset that revenue shortfall, he's collecting a lot of money from tariffs. right now, which was not happening earlier. So even SNP said yesterday that actually US credit rating might improve just because of that, because, you know, there's a new revenue source so which can collect almost like a trillion dollar a year, you know, and that can offset.
00:55:56
Speaker
So what Trump is doing very smartly, he's doing one thing. So he's saying, OK, I'm going to collect all this money from tariffs. I'm going to make all these countries come and invest it in US and I'm going to reduce the cost of doing business within US massively.
00:56:09
Speaker
Whether it's tax stuff, whether depreciation benefits, whether you know yeah yeah investment in the infrastructure, lowering the energy costs very dramatically.
00:56:22
Speaker
So this is not as bad a strategy as a lot of people thought about it you know initially. you know But obviously, if tariffs are too high, then it's going to impact you know a lot of you know the good import in terms of inflation and you know everything else. but But that hasn't happened till now because tariffs have not gone up as high as he had threatened, you know, initially.
00:56:42
Speaker
So I think in that sense, even if you put... Are SMEs, is their margin being affected because they have to pay more? Indian SMEs, yes. So the problem with Indian SMEs is that most of their exports are in low-end, you know, kind of, you know, stuff.
00:56:58
Speaker
And their margins are not that high. And if now there's a 25% tariff. And if another 25% tariff comes, then it becomes a big problem. then and because then they will they cannot export from India. you know That's it.
00:57:11
Speaker
then they will have to either shift their base or just stop exporting to US, which is tough because you don't have a market like US, you know, at the end of the day. So US is the market to be there because, you know, at the end of the day, you know, there's no other way that you can just replace US markets. So I think it will create more problem for India than for US, you know, first of all. second Are US importers able to pass on the cost to their customers?
00:57:41
Speaker
Yes and no, but like what is also happening is a lot of other countries who have got 15% tariff, they have depreciated their currencies by that amount and, you know, or close to that amount, you actually. and So, so I think there is that war going on globally also that, okay, you know, I will just like, you know, readjust part of my pricing piece, part 5-7%, you know, people have taken a hit.
00:58:03
Speaker
Part is that, you know, the currency depreciation is working in US favor. So I think for India, that's why it's very important to have some kind of a trade treaty done or understanding because otherwise what will happen is that over next year, year and half, because India is one of the largest trade surpluses with the US close to $50 billion. dollars If they don't you know address this issue, then this trade surplus will shrink very very dramatically.
00:58:29
Speaker
And then the other thing is also going to visit that right he has not put any tariffs on pharma because he also knows that you know pharma is is mission critical. But I think over time, we even that production and all that will and can shift out from India. Because see, pharma production is not very labor intensive, unlike other things. So if pressure comes, then you know a lot of that production will also shift out from India.
00:58:51
Speaker
So I think in my view, India net net will have very much reduced trade surplus. I will not be surprised that even that trade surplus becomes a trade deficit. But I think more than that, if India starts losing this export market, then that will impact India quite a lot from a manufacturing aspect and everything else also. Because that's what Modi wanted to do. He wanted increase the overall share of manufacturing in the GDP from to 25%.
00:59:20
Speaker
That will not happen. And I think the other problem for India is that with the AI advent of AI as it is, the IT services jobs are starting to shrink at a rapid pace. So that happens plus this manufacturing whammy, you know, and India is a country which needs a lot of employment right now.
00:59:36
Speaker
actually What's your advice to entrepreneurs in India? Should they even consider manufacturing or should they just look at services? I think they have to be very smart now because if this tariff situation doesn't get controlled, then they will have to move their bases. They will have to go to Middle East. or you know Because like in UAE, the tariff is only 10% actually.
00:59:56
Speaker
or Or in places like Vietnam and all that, you know ah ah I think they will have to take steps. Otherwise, all government of India...
01:00:07
Speaker
says that, okay, we'll depreciate our currency by 20%. That will not happen. So I think it's going to be tough. It's going to be tough, you know, for a lot of Indian exporters. Unless they're manufacturing something which is so great, you know, that people will still take at a higher price because...
01:00:26
Speaker
25% is already steep. 50%, you cannot run a business if you're yeah you have to cut your margins by 50%. Though that additional 25% might just be a negotiation tactic rather than yeah something which actually happens.
01:00:43
Speaker
yeah Okay. Awesome. Thank you so much for your time, Rohit. It was a real pleasure. Thank you.