John Bruton has quoted, “Financial service providers act as the lubricating oil in the economy. They link consumers who want to invest their savings for a good return with people who want to borrow on best terms of expansion.” The financial sector acts as the backbone of almost all the business domains out there in the world and it is also expanding at a brisk pace. One of the crucial segments of Banking and Finance is Non-Banking Financial Companies (NBFC). These companies operate and perform almost all the respective tasks of the banking sector and majorly deal in lending and advancing. Although, there are multiple firms involved in the particular industry-but the team of Business Connect has given its all to bring the best ones to the table for our global readership in this fascinating read. Our editorial team had an interesting and joyful session with the leadership panel of Auxilo Finserve Pvt. Ltd. The CEO and MD of the company, Neeraj Saxena shared numerous unknown facts about his entrepreneurial journey so far and other valuable nuggets for our global readers that we are keen to spill here. We truly hope and desire that this read will inspire all the upcoming leaders out there and will add some extra value to their lives.
Conceptualized in the year 2016, Auxilo is one of the leading NBFCs that are revamping the respective industry with innovative financial solutions. Formerly identified as Stellenyak General Finance Private Limited, the company is a prime example of experience and expertise. Their unique portfolio and unmatched solution panel immensely impressed us and made us feature them in our upcoming edition-‘The Most Promising NBFC to Watch’ on the cover. Giving a quick snap on his overall business operations, Neeraj asserts, “Auxilo is a pro-education NBFC poised on serving the financing gaps in the Indian education sector, with its focus on students and scaling the education infrastructure through innovative financial solution delivery. We endeavor to create a brand that is trusted and respected in the education space. Providing easy access to capital to students, schools, and colleges is the stepping stone to improving the quality of education. Auxilo envisages catering to the financing requirements of the complete education ecosystem, our financing solution focuses on to improve.”
He further adds, “Currently, active segments in our SEL portfolio are Higher Education in India or Overseas, where loans are designed for aspiring students pursuing Higher Education in countries like the USA, UK, Canada, New Zealand, Germany, Australia, Ireland-and any upcoming student-attractive countries. The average ticket size of such loans is 20 Lacs. For higher education in India loans are structured for Executive Education, Postgraduate courses such as MBA as well as Graduate Courses such as B.Tech., BBA, as well as courses for upskilling or reskilling. The average ticket size of the loans is ₹ 8-10 Lacs for Graduate Post Graduate Courses & ₹ 2 Lacs for Skill Development courses.”
EDUCATION SECTOR LOANS (ESL)
In this particular segment, the current focus of the company is on financing solutions for schools, colleges, and their infrastructure+working capital needs. The team of Auxilo currently serves schools that are engaged in providing affordable schooling to middle-class & lower-middle-class families. The loan is given by the company to these institutes for improvement in infrastructure-such as drinking water facilities, creation of additional classrooms, investment in technology such as projectors or Computers, development of labs, etc. The account manager of the company is closely associated with the school throughout the project, and their products are also designed for larger institutions.
THE AUX FACTOR
Neeraj explains further that the company follows an ‘Aux’ factor throughout the organization that represents the core design principle of the lending algorithm of the company. Also, the particular factor acts as the central principle in the lending products of the company. The Aux factor is also recognized as the 3A model internally in the organization, where 3As represent Aspirant, Aspiration, and Access. The visionary adds, “In the SEL lending design the first and foremost emphasis is on the “Aspirant” or the student. We look at the students’ past academics and entrance test scores to understand the potential of the student. The second aspect is “Aspiration” which focuses on evaluating students’ choice of course & university. We rank every course & university to understand the future job prospects for the course, as well as the economic environment & immigration policies of the country where admission is taken. The third aspect of “Access” looks at the repayment ability of the co-sponsor of the loan. Based on the above, loan is structured. The 3A model enables us to structure the loan as per the strength of the applicant. We have unsecured loans as high as 65 Lacs for a well-deserving candidate too.”
EDGE OVER PEERS
“Companies that solely focus on competition will ultimately die. Those that focus on value creation will thrive.” A healthy competition throughout the premises of the organization is necessary for proper growth and development if the same-but it is equally important to create a competitive edge in the market. The major reasons students prefer Auxilo over usual banks are specialization, and built by design that is some of their unique selling points.
Auxilo is the full education focussed NBFC that brings in the requirement for a deep understanding of the segment and thereby the ability to meet the demands. The leader says that it’s all about empathy and the ability to build a strong abiding relationship that ensures each student has a dedicated loan relation manager, who counsels, guides and handholds the customer in their attainment of fair and favorable financing.
The enthusiastic leader affirms, “Increasing choices of specialization and courses are making the student have more demand-based dynamic forms of education themselves, and this calls for the ability and agility to manage financing solutions across a wide array of requirements across the education timeline of an individual. Today a person may be in college but also is engaged in self-education through digital classrooms so education is no longer linear and education seems to be turning into a lifetime consumer product unlike a few generations back. This calls to have a more distribution-centric approach to entrain and give easy access to credit for this consumption. Moreover, loans and the process of getting them to need to be seamless and hassle-free transactions. Customer-focused technology and the ability to aggregate data from varied sources like the Fintech India stack as well as alternative data helps us build faster and more accurate credit decisions and thereby loan delivery. The emergence of data science, AI, and cognitive technologies is helping us build lifetime value engines focused on making our loans accessible and on-demand for the individual and his family once engaged with the Auxilo. Also, the Underwriting and structuring of loans are massively changing so that the dissonance factor is greatly reduced and fair financing becomes more accessible this is happening with the lending paradigm evolving to accommodate more ethnographic factors that indicate ability, intention, and other factors conducive to credit decisions.”
R&D IS THE KING
Research and Development have been crucial to the core business of Auxilo hence apart from traditional risk-based research on the loans-and portfolios-the team has widened its approach to view the overall value chain and the customer lifetime across major vantage points, milestones, and moments of truth. The team says, “We focus our R&D investments across product & services design, technology, processes, and most importantly, relationship management and profiling. Being in this space also naturally forces us with a lot of research in understanding the education eco-system its governance and policies, universities & courses, job index and relevant sector, trends in our industry, immigration policies of the country of study, etc. This further helps in process automation thus creating efficiencies & improving the productivity of our workforce.”
ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE
David Cummings has once quoted, “Corporate culture is the only sustainable competitive advantage that is completely within the control of the entrepreneur.” The Management team at Auxilo follows a participative style of leadership where other members of the team contribute to the decision-making process. This not only helps in increasing job satisfaction but also promotes ownership & control, hence motivating everyone to work towards the common vision. The inclusive approach encourages team members to continuously strive for excellence & a driving force for innovation.
In this context, the CEO asserts, “At Auxilo, we promote an open & innovative culture. We encourage our employees to challenge the status quo, ask questions & discover solutions. This helps us to re-validate our processes and improve them. We also promote a culture of innovation and beyond-the-box thinking, encouraging employees to research and bring ideas to the table irrespective of their potential and impact. The interconnectedness between various departments and our discovery sessions that we conduct periodically enables us to quickly spot the rights and the errors across the key vitals of the organization. The energy and enthusiasm our team brings daily to the workplace is quite an indicator of our forward-thinking culture and thereby a successful culture strategy.”
CULMINATION
There is a perfect quotation that says, “The best preparation for tomorrow is doing your best in present.” And the team of Auxilo has understood the assignment very well as they are engaged in providing top-notch services to its clientele on a large scale with their dedication and passion towards the same. A leader is considered the backbone of any successful business organization as he or she tries his or her best to bring the actual potential of the employees and other people engaged with the same.
Before signing off, Neeraj urges all the business enthusiasts out there to put in their best efforts and dedicate themselves to their respective realms. He revealed that he is very much inspired by Warren Buffet-and his one quote that says, “Someone is sitting is sitting in the shade because someone has planted a tree long back.”
