Shrirang Tambe has extensively worked in the field of investment banking and private equity. He is the Founder and CEO of ORIGA Leasing one of the first FinTech asset leasing companies for high growth oriented companies with a philosophy of access to finance. ORIGA Leasing is instrumental in providing highly innovative asset leasing solutions for sectors such as healthcare, manufacturing, sanitation, water, energy and services. It is one of the first leasing companies to extensively leverage technology for providing complete Asset Life Cycle Management (ALCM) to its clients.
Earlier, he was also the Founder of Ourea Capital Advisors, a boutique corporate finance advisory company, that provided an entire gamut of growth capital advisory to high growth companies.
His expertise lies in advising and nurturing growth oriented companies across financial and strategic areas. He brings with him over 12 years of experience in the financial services sector and has worked with several companies in the domains of business planning and strategy formulation, financial modelling and budgeting, fund raising, private equity investment and post investment asset management. He has worked with CEOs and management of several companies in building up a robust growth strategy.
Shrirang Tambe is a Chartered Accountant and a CFA Level 1 candidate. He has been a speaker at various conferences in India for prestigious institutions such as ICAI, various chapters of CII and SME Chambers and various international conferences. He has been a visiting faculty to many business schools in Mumbai in the area of corporate finance and valuation.
ET: In recent years, innovations in the financial markets have been the cause of much heart-burn to regulators, investors & customers alike as some believe that market turbulence has been caused by 'fancy innovation'. What are your thoughts on innovations in the financial markets?
ST: Innovation in the financial markets was long overdue. Since the industrial era of India till date, we had only two financial products to fund businesses - working capital loan and term loan in addition to promoter equity and informal channels of financing. In the early 2000, a new class of capital in the form of equity investment came into existence which is today popularly known as venture capital and private equity. Even today, India seriously lacks both, the depth and breadth of fixed income (debt oriented) financial products to fund businesses on a sustainable basis. Conceptually, equity is raised only at a time when a steep jump in business is expected or required. However to grow the business in a sustainable manner and over a period of time, debt capital is the most critical. Thus you will observe that innovations in the financial markets are predominantly in two segments - payments and lending. Payments have revolutionised the way people spend across various platforms. Lending has seen innovation in the form of marketplaces and various platforms are coming up to fund small businesses, merchants, salaried people and the various strata of the society which were left out of the traditional financing system.
ET: Asset leasing plays a significant role in financing corporate needs across the globe. However, this trend has not caught on much in India. What could be the reasons for this?
ST: Asset leasing is a very powerful financing product to build and augment capacities required across segments to enable growth. In the USA, 75% of SMEs are financed through asset leasing which is estimated to be a US$ 1.3 trillion industry. According to us, India is one of the most under penetrated markets when it comes to asset leasing. The key reasons for asset leasing not catching up in India:
| (a) |
Over emphasis by the traditional financing system on their conventional product of Term Loans and making people believe that it is "one size fits all". |
| (b) |
Lack of focus from the regulators to promote the same. |
| (c) |
Quagmire of tax laws with respect to leasing and retrospective amendments to the same hurting the industry. |
Things are beginning to change now and a lot wider acceptance of this innovative financing product is seen. We thus believe that leasing will grow over a period of time.
ET: SMEs play an important role in contributing towards the national economy. Often they are impacted by financing challenges among other bottlenecks. How does financial innovation help in tending to the needs of such enterprises and that of entrepreneurs?
ST: Financial innovation brings about financial inclusion not only at the B2C level but also at B2B level. The newer products introduced by the alternative financing eco-system reaches a large number of SME companies who were earlier completely devoid from financing since they did not tick all the boxes of a traditional financer. For example, ORIGA looks at leasing to companies who are just one year in operations whereas the standard norm in the banking segment is to fund only after three years of operations. The fundamental difference between the newer financing companies leveraging on innovation and technology and the traditional financing system is that the newer players are more focused on the future while the traditional companies put excessive emphasis on the past.
ET: Recently Micro-finance firms have been the target of acquisitions by larger predatory Banking players. In your view, does this mean that innovators in the financial sectors can only grow by joining hands with larger financial firms?
ST: Mergers and acquisitions in financial services happen for various reasons thus innovation is not the sole driver for it. Innovators can definitely gain by collaborating with larger firms when the products and services are complimentary to a large extent. However it is not necessary that success will come only from collaborations. If the product offering is strong and has a niche positioning among its consumers, innovators today have the opportunity to expand by themselves.
ET: Being a first of its kind, how does your company, ORIGA Leasing, stand out from your competitors? Can you please elucidate some of the innovative financial solutions offered by your company?
ST: ORIGA Leasing is India's first FinTech to provide the entire Asset Life Cycle Management (ALCM) to its high growth SME clients. Thus financing is a part of ALCM. ORIGA assists an SME client right from procurement of the asset to its end of the tenure recycling which no other pure play equipment financing company does. ORIGA is also the first to deploy a strong technology backbone including mobile based solutions to this entire business process and the lessee will be able to carry out all the necessary activities with respect to its equipment with a click of a button on his mobile. ORIGA is a perfect blend of balance sheet financing and technology driven business processes which makes the model highly scalable. Looking at a first of its kind technology in the B2B financing space, 500 Startups, a highly reputed global venture capital seed fund and start-up accelerator has invested in ORIGA and has listed it among the top 15 investments it has in India.
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