This startup wants you to get a credit card and bank account even before you land in US

© Faizan Javed
This startup wants you to get a credit card and bank account even before you land in US

Neobanks are the new ‘in’ thing with many fintech startups offering digitised banking-related services to fill the gaps for what traditional banks cannot provide. While most neobanks are focused on ensuring digital onboarding and access to accounts apart from offering credit, Zolve’s focus is specific to students and immigrants moving abroad.

With travel conditions slowly promising to normalise, this startup founded by former TaxiForSure founder Raghunandan G is providing cross-border solutions.

Speaking to Moneycontrol, Raghunandan said, “What we are trying to address is credit history migration. For example, people migrating to the US do not have any credit history. They are categorised as high credit risk individuals and this severely limits their access to credit.”

“We acquire these customers just before they migrate. On the basis of their credit history, we ask our partner bank in the US to provide them with a bank account, credit card, etc. The assurance we give to our partner bank is that if these customers default, we will repay,” he explained.

The startup has been in its beta mode since August 2021 and 43,000 customers have signed up for the services. Now, the app will be made available to all customers and Raghunandan is hoping to scale up in the next one year.

“We are hoping to grow to one lakh customers by the end of 2021, and will hopefully have a million customers in a year from now. We are receiving a lot of queries from students and working professionals looking to migrate to Canada, Germany, Australia etc. from India, and also from non-Indian immigrants moving to the US,” he said.

Currently, Zolve has a partnership only with CFSBank in the US, Raghunandan said, adding that the startup is in talks to forge tie-ups with more banks across countries. In the next few years, the company aims to expand its offerings to become a full-stack financial services enabler for immigrants and students.

“We want to provide support for opening bank accounts, credit cards, securing loans, insurances, help them with remittances, rewards, trading accounts, provide taxation advisory, etc,” he said.

Raghunandan was the Founder and CEO of TaxiForSure until the company was sold to Ola in 2015 for $200 million. He founded Zolve in January 2021 and the company secured seed funding of $15 million from investors such as Accel, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Founder Collective and other angel investors.