How Refyne is financially empowering staff with ‘Wage On-Call for’ in India

Monetary wellness of an worker performs a key position of their happiness, pride, and function at paintings. Workers who’re going through monetary tension are much less engaged, motivated and prone to trade jobs. Loss of finances, low source of revenue, or urgent monetary tasks cause tension, anxiousness or even melancholy. The truth that staff are ill-equipped to make the most productive use in their remuneration most effective provides to their woes. It’s then as much as employers to step up and make sure their workforce’s monetary wellness. Mr. Apoorv Kumar, CTO and Co-founder, Refyne, shared his insights with CXOToday at the want for the real-time get admission to of wage and the way Refyne is leveraging generation to make this a fact for the Indian staff.

 

Q1. Refyne is the primary and biggest ‘Wage-on-Call for’ platform in India and Asia. Are you able to let us know extra about the concept that and its reputation since inception ultimate yr?

Refyne is helping staff construct monetary resilience by way of letting them get admission to their wage as and once they earn it. We spouse with employers to permit their staff to trace, download and spend a portion in their earned however unpaid wage any time earlier than payday, enabling better monetary regulate & freedom.

Refyne works in a trade to trade to client (B2B2C) style. Our answer is unfastened for employers and seamlessly integrates with any HRMS, with out disrupting payroll. The plug and play answer works as a cellular and internet app that we could staff get admission to their earned however unpaid wage every time they want it. Workers can straight away switch the cash to their checking account or any virtual pockets. This is helping them meet any unplanned or deliberate bills in the course of the month, with no need to nervously take a look at their calendar, calculating the times till payday. Refyne’s Wage-on-Call for isn’t a mortgage, due to this fact does now not contain borrowing at the a part of the worker and carries no price to the employer.

Our distinctive price proposition has been a breather for a number of hundred thousand hired Indians who face monetary tension and money shortfalls between pay cycles. For employers, Wage On-Call for ends up in progressed staff productiveness and retention, decrease attrition, quicker hiring, all this at 0 price.

 

Q2. What number of corporations does Refyne now paintings with, in addition to the entire selection of shoppers? How do you plan to develop within the coming yr?

At this time, we’re partnered with over 200 organizations, catering to over 1.5 million staff. Our clientele contains Riot Meals, Acko, Akash Byju’s, Aarti Industries, Practo, Café Espresso Day, Cars24, Epigamia, Area of Hiranandani, amongst others.

We predict to achieve greater than 3 million staff by way of the tip of 2022. Our geographic footprint has expanded all of a sudden from Tier 1 to Tier 3 towns together with Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi NCR, Hyderabad, Raipur, Lucknow, Kanpur, Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Bilaspur, Kharar, Vizag, Kochi, Trichy, and lots of extra.

In January 2022, Refyne closed a Sequence B spherical of US$ 82M led by way of Tiger International. Since inception in past due 2020, Refyne has raised a complete of US$ 106M. This contains earlier investment of US $16M from its Sequence A in June 2021 and US$ 4.1M in a seed spherical in December 2020.

Refyne is subsidized by way of main international buyers together with QED Traders, Jigsaw VC, companions of DST International, RTP International, and XZY Capital. We actually have a strategic partnership with ICICI Financial institution.

We intend to scale the trade and mission deeper into the Indian marketplace. We’re additionally increasing our product features, the workforce, and more than a few trade purposes.

 

Q3. How does the flagship app interface with the group’s present payroll processes?

Refyne is an easy-to-use app for workers to avail on-demand pay. The platform integrates with the employer’s attendance and payroll control gadget and makes use of this knowledge to offer real-time earned wage get admission to to the workforce. The employer’s operating capital standing does now not go through any trade. Refyne fronts the withdrawal and credit the cash to the workers’ wage account, with out disrupting the group’s payroll procedure. I’d like to emphasise that information safety and privateness are of paramount hobby to us. We most effective gather data on staff who join Refyne, and strictly as in line with RBI norms for compliance.

Refyne has additionally advanced a proprietary Dealer Control Machine & Attendance Control Machine that permits huge enterprises to seamlessly scale Wage-on-Call for for his or her on-roll and off-roll staff.

 

This fall. How is the group using AI, ML, cloud, and rising applied sciences?

Technological innovation is on the center of Refyne. We’ve been the usage of deep-tech features reminiscent of AI & ML to strengthen the OCR to categorize and establish information sort and its correctness whilst taking pictures information from pictures of paperwork like Aadhar, DL, PAN, Voter ID, and many others. This eases the method of signing up for KYC for customers. Additionally it is supporting us to construct generation that is helping spouse corporations who don’t seem to be very tech savvy, to optimize processing buildings.

We’ve effectively constructed a real-time KYC gadget in conjunction with AI-driven underwriting algorithms. At Refyne, we also are development a brand new layer on most sensible of AI and ML features commoditized by way of Google and Amazon to lend a hand us seize revealing information on person behaviour to which we will use to additional optimize our generation. We’ve automatic tech to trace real-time wage updates that permit staff to get admission to their earned wage any time earlier than payday. We additionally depend on a great lean workforce and in depth automation with DevOps.

 

Q5. What efforts is the company taking to protected the privateness of person information?

Refyne has been supremely vigilant about information safety since day one. Refyne’s methods are ISO-27001 qualified for info safety. We’re RBI-compliant and feature performed and finished vulnerability trying out by way of most sensible VAPT corporations in India, together with WeSecureApp, and all worker information is controlled as in line with information privateness regulations.

 

Q6. How do you envision the adoption of Wage-on-Call for evolving over the following 3-5 years?

The adoption of salary-on-demand has enabled corporations in other places on this planet – the United States, UK, Latin The us – to tell apart their worker receive advantages applications, making them extra interesting to the staff and possible ability. Analysis^[1] displays that by way of enabling get admission to to earned wage previous to payday, corporations can toughen worker engagement, productiveness, total retention, and attrition charges. For instance, staff who really feel in regulate in their source of revenue are much less stressed out about their funds, extra motivated and productive, and show off a more potent sense of loyalty against their employers.

Wage on-demand goes to be a game-changer on the subject of hiring and holding ability, an EY record revealed ultimate yr printed that almost 60% of Indians imagine it a deciding issue for his or her subsequent activity. The longer term appears to be like vibrant for Wage-on-Call for and staff throughout India must be expecting to peer this vital receive advantages presented of their business.

 

Q7. How are you using generation to dismantle bias in India’s monetary inclusion adventure?

Refyne used to be constructed to dismantle bias in get admission to to finance some of the underbanked and unbanked plenty in India. Smaller debtors from the decrease source of revenue team again and again finally end up paying a lot upper rates of interest in comparison to others. The phrases round casual lending i.e mortgage sharks and unregulated mortgage apps are exorbitant – some going as much as 300% hobby and more than a few hidden fees and charges. This leaves customers liable to vicious debt traps. All this, most effective as a result of they’re looking to align their source of revenue with their bills.

Refyne helps save you shoppers from falling prey to those predatory schemes by way of giving them clean and speedy get admission to to in a position liquidity that they have got rightfully earned, with out being concerned about rates of interest or reimbursement tension. This is helping them wean off expensive credit score schemes.

A key characteristic of Wage-on-Call for that addresses lending bias is making the product inexpensive and to be had to everybody. Refyne doesn’t ask customers their credit score historical past. As an alternative, now we have a proprietary scoring style referred to as Refyne Rating which takes under consideration a number of elements – like occupation trajectory, diligence at paintings, and many others. that is helping customers construct their creditworthiness and avail extra monetary merchandise and take part within the formal monetary ecosystem.

 

Q8. Is Refyne a multi-language platform? Which language is maximum most well-liked at the platform?

Sure, Refyne is made in India, made for India. We’re very thinking about making monetary inclusion for Indians a fact. Our app helps 12 Indian languages, together with English, Hindi, Kannada, Marathi, Konkani, Telugu, Bengali, Odisha, to call some. Of those, essentially the most used is English, carefully adopted by way of Hindi.

 

Q9. What are probably the most people-first priorities you’re selling inside Refyne?

Refyne is large on humans & tradition. The management has at all times put our workforce and their hobby first. Refyne used to be born all the way through the COVID-19 pandemic, so we’re fiercely steadfast about our tradition and well-being of our workforce. Beginning with insurance policies on hybrid paintings and offering make stronger for our participants operating from house. We’re making sure that ok measures are being taken to safeguard our staff and make allowance them to pursue their core strengths. We additionally make stronger regimen upskilling, consciousness and wellness techniques and adoption of gear that automate and optimize the workforce’s output. We imagine and observe the people-first, employee-centric way.