Henna Jain Tatia, Co-founder, StuCred, a Chennai-based fintech start-up company in conversation with Guardian 20.
A. This journey started from Economics & International relations at St Andrews in Scotland. I always wanted to be in a space which has a high impact work culture. I took a gap year post graduation from St Andrews, in Scotland. My brother had already started Stucred, based out of Chennai. So by the time I graduated, I was just organically helping with inputs & ideas. Seeing how well we were able to work so well, we both decided to take the plunge together and join hands.
Q. Share the idea of Stucred.
A. Strucred was born out of our own personal experiences in College, and we were very lucky and privileged to go abroad for our college and had parents supporting us. We realised that the experience of Indian College students differed from that of students studying abroad. India is an underserved market. So picked up on this lack of financial services, where there is that gap. And at Stucred we are offering college students loans which are interest free & collateral free. We offer this to both undergraduates and graduate students.
Q. How have you marketed the understanding of Stucred to potential and needy students?
A. We screened colleges and approved various colleges to put on board onto our app. So, if you are on University A you can then automatically get onto our app and reap the benefits. But if you are in a college which is not on our app then you can send in a request. We will do our own research on the college. The advantage of being on Stucred is that you learn to understand and balance credit card scores.
Q. How do you choose the College?
A. So first we went to IITs, IIMs, Amity University, and Lovely Professional University of India.
As they are the top tier in the country. As we are interest free & collateral free. It’s a gamble for Stucrd to take them. Almost 250 plus Colleges in India. We have gone for the top 200 Colleges in India to date.
Q. What has been the reach so far in India. How many students have you benefited & impacted to date?
A. As of today’s date we have 29,000 registered users pan India. We charge a minimum service fee to each student. Fixed fee which does not waiver from student to student. We are improving our algorithm to make it more personal for each student.