Revolutionizing Fintech Dheeraj Medikonda on AI and Personalized Banking Solutions

Episode Overview

Dheeraj Medikonda is the Chief Operating Officer and Head of Client Solutions at FinMkt, a fintech company dedicated to streamlining and optimizing lending and investment processes for both consumers and financial institutions. With over nine years of experience at FinMkt, Dheeraj has been instrumental in shaping the company’s direction, focusing on reducing friction in complex financial transactions, particularly in the home improvement and healthcare sectors. His leadership has driven the development of innovative platforms that enable businesses to offer financing options at the point of sale, ensuring a seamless and efficient customer experience.

Dheeraj’s journey into the fintech world began with a strong technical foundation. He earned a Master’s degree in Information Technology from Rutgers University, where he honed his skills in programming languages like C++, Python, and SQL. However, despite his technical proficiency, Dheeraj quickly realized that his true passion lay beyond coding. His interest in problem-solving and leadership steered him away from a purely technical career, prompting him to focus on the strategic and operational aspects of business. This shift allowed him to leverage his technical knowledge in a broader context, contributing to FinMkt’s success in a non-technical capacity.

Episode Transcript

Kevin Rosenquist: Hey there, welcome to Pay Pod, where we bring you conversations with the trailblazers shaping the future of payments and fintech. My name is Kevin Rosenquist. Thanks for listening. Today I’m speaking with Dheeraj Medikonda, COO and head of Client Solutions at FinMkt, a company that focuses on building platforms that streamline and optimize the lending and investment processes for both consumers and financial institutions. They work a lot in the healthcare and home improvement space, giving businesses the option of offering financing to their customers. We chat about a variety of topics, including how to manage friction and the user experience when working in the financial space, and how the expansion of financing options at checkout will only get more prevalent. Please welcome Dheeraj Medikonda. So you’ve got a master’s degree from Rutgers in information technology. You’re skilled in C plus Python, SQL. So you’re pretty damn smart,?

Dheeraj Medikonda: I wouldn’t go as far as calling myself smart. I do have it. I do have a master’s, but I’ve been focused more on the non-tech side than the tech side at fin market. So there’s much smarter people here on the technology side, so we’ll let them do the smart work.

Kevin Rosenquist: Yeah, I did notice you’re kind of like, even though your tech background, you’re definitely more on the leadership roles. Did you is that something you always wanted or did you see yourself being more of a coder or a builder at first?

Dheeraj Medikonda: I never wanted to be a coder. Uh, I think I landed the I got my bachelor’s in this computer science plus electronics, plus a bunch of different things. Just short of saying, you know, don’t don’t really know what to do. So I got all of that. Then, you know, I decided that then that was back in India. So then I decided I wanted to move to the US. So I got my master’s in Business and science, which is my attempt at moving away from technology. Mhm. Then you know, that was how then I met Luan and I look back since then. But it coding was not was an easy thing for me to start. But that was not where I wanted to be eventually.

Kevin Rosenquist: Do you like that aspect of it or is that just not really your thing? The coding and the product building and the sitting in front of the keyboard and all that.

Dheeraj Medikonda: You know, the problem solving part of that is always fun. I mean, your backbone is actually coding the problem solving. The problem solving part is actually fun and always fun. It’s just that beyond a certain point, it wasn’t that much. I always wanted to do something beyond that. That is where now I’ve been focused more on the non-tech side of the house. But knowing tech always helps, right? Oh yeah. Technology company. We build technology all day, every day. So that helps. So I use I use my technology skills on a daily basis.

Kevin Rosenquist: Yeah I mean being able to talk knowledge, you know, with knowledge and not sounding like you, you know, you’re faking your way through it, I would imagine helps a lot in the roles that you have. So you work for Finn Market, and it’s the only company you’ve been with in your career, at least according to your LinkedIn profile. Right?

Dheeraj Medikonda: No, that is actually true. No, I, I graduated, I got my master’s, and I was, uh, I wanted to work in an early stage, uh, fintech space startup kind of a thing. So I was meeting a bunch of different founders, interviewing with a bunch of different companies and all. Then I met Luan and she. And then based on all of the conversations that I had, this just the mission statement and the clarity that they had and the fact that, you know, they were seasoned entrepreneurs made a big difference. And I could see the difference between everybody else and, and see, and then it’s been a good journey where I’ve been. I’ve learned a lot from where I started nine years ago. So it’s been a good learning experience where I’ve learned a lot, grown a lot in the organization. So I’ve never had to actually look back or look at other options. It’s been challenging. Every day is a different challenge. Me in a good way. We get to solve different problems for our bank partners, for our different clients and all of that. So it’s been fun. It continues to be fun. So fin market it’s been for the last nine years.

Kevin Rosenquist: You mentioned that you could sense the clarity that they had when you started talking to them. How did you come to that conclusion?

Dheeraj Medikonda: That that was basically, you know, when when based on all of the other conversations I was having, when you ask a lot of these questions, right, you know what happens, you know, when there’s no capital, you know, how do you plan on raising capital? You know, what is the end goal, you know, how do you plan on getting there? You know, what is the timeline for it? There are answers. There are a lot of answers. And, you know, depending on how you phrase the question, you’re getting different types of answers. But there was a lot of honest answers when it comes to loan. And they’re like, look, some of this we don’t know. We’ll figure it out and you’ll be along for the ride and figure it out together. So there was no Sugarcoating. That wasn’t that. You know, I have this massive opportunity. I have it in the bag or any of that. It was just very clear, blunt, in a nice way. And there was very there’s a lot of clarity around that, which is usually the case with any early stage startup. And also you hope so. Hope that’s true. But yeah, there was a lot of that that that made a big difference because you know, you know, what you’re getting into and the people you’re working with are working for know what they’re working. And they’ve done that a few times. And the fact that, you know, one is just one company, and this is three and one second company together, she’s our CTO and our CEO. So so that obviously gave a lot of confidence back then.

Kevin Rosenquist: Yeah. And what prompted you to come to the US.

Dheeraj Medikonda: That’s that’s.

Dheeraj Medikonda: A deep question.

Kevin Rosenquist: We don’t have. We can only get we only have to get as deep as you want to.

Dheeraj Medikonda: No no no just kidding. But it was.

Dheeraj Medikonda: More of a natural thing. It’s just that I the environment I grew up in and the part of the country, India I come from, that’s one of the better alternatives back then. Not right now. Things have changed significantly, but back then, you know, you get a bachelor’s in a good, good university and then, you know, the best thing for you to do is to go to the US because you know how people used to talk about things. You know, you’re hard wired to that. So you sort of have that thought process. So the moment I started my bachelor’s, I knew that, you know, that was going to be the best alternative. And I was I kept thinking about that, working towards that and all of that. So it was more of a natural thing just because of being conditioned to that, getting everybody around you to talk about it. And I had a lot of family members. I have a lot of my first cousins, second cousins here. So I’ve already seen their journey. I hear from them. I used to hear from them a lot back then and I used to. So all of that helped. So there was a lot of that conditioning that was made very natural.

Kevin Rosenquist: How was the transition? Was it hard? I mean, obviously it was hard in some ways, but like, did it feel like a natural transition or were there times where you were like, oh God, am I doing the wrong thing here? Like what? How did it go for you? Because that’s like, I guess the reason I’m asking is because that’s so foreign to me, like I can’t. I’ve never done anything like. I mean, I moved from I moved from Illinois to Colorado and that was crazy for me, you know? So I can’t imagine going from like, India to, to the US.

Dheeraj Medikonda: It is a yes or no kind of a thing. It wasn’t that tough for me because I had family here. I had like my first cousins who I grew up with, you know, my second cousins, my extended family. There were a lot of people here. So there was that comfort that not going to some place where, you know, there’s nobody around, right? Yeah. The moment I landed, I like, say my phone, everything ready to go. I just had to go pick it up and was all set. So I knew that there were multiple people here who I could pick up the phone and call them at any point, and they’ll be there. So that was a lot of comfort.

Kevin Rosenquist: Yeah, that helps a lot.

Dheeraj Medikonda: But yeah, that made a big difference because if you look at India in general, even if you go from one part of India to another, the language changes, things change significantly. So you sort of also become conditioned to that. You know, where things change you. You cross from one state to another, you drive a few hundred miles. It’s a very different language, a very different cultures. She used to that sort of thing. So that doesn’t going to a different place doesn’t scare you that much, is what I feel. The reason a lot of people from India do travel abroad, and you have a lot of Indians across the globe. I think that that makes it easy for people from India, because you’re sort of used to that. You go to your high school or just a general school. It’s different languages, people with different languages, different cultures, different dressing styles. And also so you sort of used to that so it doesn’t throw you off as much.

Kevin Rosenquist: Have you always been somebody who who gravitates towards leadership roles? Interest in life?

Dheeraj Medikonda: To some extent, yes. I think that I think that is more less about leadership, but more about doing something that is more challenging. I mean, usually someone used to say, you know, this is difficult or this is not possible, that there was that interest in me always that it’s let’s try it out. Let’s see if we can make it happen. So there was always that interest that sort of led me in this path, which is also why, you know, the reason I was looking for on an early stage or a startup as soon as they graduate was graduated was for this specific reason. I don’t simple path. You walk in, you know what to do and you keep doing the same thing all day, every day. Also, one of the reasons why I didn’t want to be in coding is because beyond a certain point, it is it becomes simpler. Not trying to offend anyone here. No. Yeah, yeah.

Kevin Rosenquist: I think I think it’s clear.

Dheeraj Medikonda: Yeah. It becomes, you know, very regular schedule. You’re doing the same stuff. So that having that difference in your schedule, changing things, having to handle things differently on a daily basis, that was something that was always interesting.

Kevin Rosenquist: So you like the challenge. You’re not the you’re not the clock in clock out 9 to 5 kind of guy.

Speaker4: Yeah.

Dheeraj Medikonda: That was never something that I was looking for in my family. I have a lot of my extended family, immediate family are all entrepreneurs, so they’re all used to that. I’ve seen that. I’ve grown up with all of them. So I see that, you know, it’s an every day is a different day for them. And that’s, you know, how to operate at home and all of that. So I think a lot of that conditioning and just the fact that, you know, you can. You learn a lot, you grow a lot, and you see people, you know, that that smile make you do different things, you know, build products, build companies and all that, that it was inspiring to see all of that. You know, that journey and the fact that there was a lot of successful people around me really made a big difference there.

Kevin Rosenquist: Yeah, that’s a good point. Like if you see that a lot, if, you know, if all you’re around is people who work 9 to 5 jobs, then that just seems normal to you. And maybe it’s a little bit more out of your comfort zone to be in a leadership role or be in an entrepreneurial role. Whereas if you see that at a young age, then you’re like, oh, that’s, that’s that’s doable. That’s not intimidating, that’s doable.

Dheeraj Medikonda: That doable part was, you know, the good thing for me, at least in growing up, that, you know, there’s a lot of people who’ve done that and they’re successful. So that helped.

Kevin Rosenquist: All right. So I had to call my credit card company the other day. And it’s a true story, too. And the robot asked me to put in the last four of my card number and it said, we’re sorry, we do not have a record of that account. So I put it in again and it said, we’re sorry, we do not have a record of that account. And I’m like, you’re a major bank, and I’ve been with you for years and years and years talking about just legacy technology and this kind of stuff, which we’re going to get into some more. Why are so many major institutions still so bad at this?

Speaker3: Yeah, I think it’s I.

Dheeraj Medikonda: Don’t think there is a lack of intent with anyone because we talk to a lot of credit unions, banks on a daily basis.

Speaker4: Sure.

Dheeraj Medikonda: I think there is ever a lack of intent. It is just the limitations that they have to deal with on a daily basis. You know, they are stuck with this legacy technology that doesn’t let them evolve quick enough, move soon enough, or, you know, they can’t really make a mistake and learn from it and then change things quickly. You make a mistake. You have to live with it for a really long time, so you have to get things right. There is always that, and just the fact that you’re a large organization sometimes makes it difficult. Plus just the whole technology stack that all of these banks use or Legacy. Legacy technology that all of them use makes it difficult. Makes it difficult for you to get data, get visibility, transparency. Because one thing that we have gone from a platform standpoint is that data. It’s all about transparency. You need to know what is going on at any given point in time. You need to be able to track everything. You need to be able to see what is working, what is not. Because only then can you even, you know, make a decision that you have to change something. So visibility is something that is extremely important. You know that that I think lack of visibility just, you know, the fact that they can’t change things soon enough, quick enough and all the impact of it and just the all of that, I think slows them down, it makes it difficult for them to get things done or try out or try out these new things. So they wait. They wait till a lot of other peers in the space get it done, get it right, and then they know, okay, it works, and then they get into it or try to get into it. A lot of times by the time they get into it, it’s moved on.

Kevin Rosenquist: I was just going to ask that they are already late to the game by that point.

Kevin Rosenquist: Late to the game.

Kevin Rosenquist: Do you find I’ve asked this I’ve asked this before for people on this show, and I’m always curious, like I feel like in the last you know, since AI has become such a buzz buzz term and stuff, it feels like companies might be more willing to think about updating their tech, updating their stack, making some changes, thinking about user experience more. Do you think that AI has been a catalyst for something for companies to really look at what they’re doing technologically?

Dheeraj Medikonda: Yeah, I think they do.

Dheeraj Medikonda: There’s definitely, you know, at least there’s been good use case of AI out there where, you know, there is the visibility part. Is there transparency? The learning curve is there. You know, you can feed data and there is something out there that is going to give you some meaningful analysis or at least point gaps and all versus, you know, having to go do it on your own or finding someone who can do that for you. So that is definitely help. But obviously, you know, it is still not as mature as you would want it to be. There’s still challenges, you know, probably you see one, I think take one good article and sometimes three bad things about I on. But that is just the natural course of any new technology or any new product or anything out there. Right. So that that definitely helps, I’m sure, in terms of being able to, uh, get better insights, better visibility and have lesser dependency, you know, let let something else that is built for this figure things out for you versus, you know, doing it all by yourself. So it takes the effort. It reduces the effort.

Kevin Rosenquist: But do you think that there’s like a fear for some companies like seeing this like incredible new new to most people anyway technology coming out that they go, oh man, we better we better get our get our stuff together quick because otherwise we’re going to get left behind.

Dheeraj Medikonda: Yeah, I think there’s a lot of that. There’s a lot of uh, you see a lot of companies using AI today, but is it really going to make a big difference in terms of what you do every day? Is it going to add value? Is it going to add value to your end user? Maybe not. So everybody does want to be on that bandwagon in terms of being able to say that, you know, I have I or use I am I enabled to having making sure that on the I bus there but that’s it really change everything for everyone. Does it improve things? Is it making a significant difference? Probably not, because we do work with a lot of partners who say that, you know, is it you see that on their homepage when you go to their website, you look at plenty of vendors on a daily basis. Everybody has I do we use AI tools. We don’t.

Dheeraj Medikonda: Yeah, yeah.

Dheeraj Medikonda: There isn’t necessarily any real benefit in it. They’re all using it. You know there is some value to it. So it all comes with the data next to it saying, you know it’s there, it’s not fully matured and all of that. But it doesn’t necessarily always unless you find the right use case for it and then you’re good thought into it in terms of what you’re going to do with it, what is the end goal and you’re working towards it. It’s there checks a box, but doesn’t necessarily move the needle in terms of what you want it to impact.

Kevin Rosenquist: So you talk about banks and credit unions using cumbersome legacy technologies. That’s one of the things I read on your site, like when you, from what you have come across like are many major financial institutions sort of out of touch when it comes to their technology or are they? Is it bad? Is it just like, do you just kind of need some upgrades? How do you evaluate it as a general rule?

Speaker4: I think it’s basically two broad buckets.

Dheeraj Medikonda: You have these more traditional, larger banks who have technology, who have in-house technology teams who try to do things, but the pace at which they deliver, because of general the complexity of being a bank and having to operate like a bank, brings certain operational overheads in terms of being able to deliver on things and quickly. Right. That’s where, you know, making a mistake is not something that you can really, you know, even look into. So getting things right is difficult for them. So that technology and then being able to scale the technology and change things.

Speaker4: Because if you look.

Dheeraj Medikonda: At the current, because we operate in point of sale, the current point of sale space, when you work with large enterprise partners on home improvement, large OEMs, dental space, healthcare, space, everybody has a slightly different sales process. You are providing financing at the point of sale. But before it comes to that concept of securing financing or talking about financing, there’s a different workflow. It is significant enough where there is no there isn’t necessarily like one model that fits for everyone. You can create that, but it also doesn’t work with large enterprises, right? So you need to be able to build a technology or a stack technology stack that facilitates that customization that you can work with, not just the big partners, but you can also work with all the smaller ones because everybody is different. There’s slight variations to it. So being able to support that level of customization, and which is essential in terms of being able to work with a larger network of providers out there or partners out there, is something that they can’t really accomplish, because that is where the being being in touch with the user base, understanding what is really needed, getting that input and then evolving is, is, is is a thought process in itself. It is like a daily thing. You have to you have to keep communicating with the end user. You have to figure out how you get the feedback. It’s not about sending feedback forms, but it’s getting feedback forms that are actually completed. So listening to your end user learning from their feedback is something that is critical that does not happen. Always larger organizations, you know where you have larger organizations, different teams. You have a merchant side of the banking house. You have a consumer side of the banking house.

Dheeraj Medikonda: They don’t talk to each other. But essentially for something like this, both of them have to talk to each other. That’s when you know you build something that actually works. So you have lots of banks who have technology can change a few things here and there, but the ability to customize it to make sure it is very effective for that end user, and actually listening to that end user and understanding the space and understanding what needs to be done from a product standpoint isn’t necessarily something that is out there. On the other side, you have credit unions, community banks who a lot of intent. Everybody wants to serve the community. Everybody wants to provide services that they should to the community they serve. But there is limited resources on that front. It’s not a lack of intent, but a limited resource. And they rely on a lot of legacy technology that, you know, limits their capability to evolve or change things. They have to wait for that legacy technology that they have been using to add these additional services. And they’re, you know, sort of stuck with that. So it limits their capability. So there’s intent always everybody wants to do what should be done, but do they all really know what needs to be done. Not always. And do they have all the right tools to make sure that they can deliver to that end user, that they can actually retain the customer, not just acquire them and make sure that, you know, they’re able to continue to retain them. Probably not. That’s usually where you know that they lack in the ability to retain that customer or, you know, make sure that they can actually even acquire sometimes those customers. Because customization is important.

Kevin Rosenquist: When you buy.

Kevin Rosenquist: On Amazon, you can pay install in installments using a firm, even for low cost items. Sometimes which which is which is funny to me. And they’re like, do you want to finance this? I’m like, no, I think I can handle it. But they always give the option. So your product, fin fi, allows merchants to offer financing, but it works differently. Differently, right.

Dheeraj Medikonda: It’s a slightly.

Dheeraj Medikonda: Different end user and market that we are target from a typical Amazon. We are more focused on the home improvement and the healthcare space, which is also infinitely more complicated because it’s bigger ticket sizes. There’s, you know, takes longer. It’s not like you’re deciding and you’re releasing funds right away, like home improvement projects can sometimes run for a number of months, and you don’t disperse funds just once as different milestones where you have to disburse funds into the. Accrue certain ways, longer term products. It’s just set up very differently. Different set of controls that you need to have to ensure that you know everybody is getting what they need, and then it is working the way it should. So we focus more on home improvement. Healthcare. It’s more complicated. We’ve done a lot of retail. We work with a lot of retail partners in the past. We continue to work with them. But home improvement. Healthcare is where we see a lot of opportunity in terms of being able to provide this, this ability for them, for the end users to be able to tap into our product and then do the right thing in terms of facilitating that sale at the point of sale. Because the current systems out there, the limitations are, you know, when you have a sale happening at the point of sale, you want to close it. You have a salesperson potentially talking to an end consumer. Home improvement. You’re trying to replace your windows or doors. You need to replace it now. Or your HVAC, which has to happen now. In healthcare the procedure done, a dental procedure done. You can’t wait for like three, four, five days and then come back and then keep working on that project or on that procedure.

Dheeraj Medikonda: You need to close that sale then, because then the sales person can go back to selling. So being able to facilitate that whole process in near real time with minimal friction, but the right amount of friction to make sure there is, you know, you’re compliant and giving everybody what they should be seeing. And all of that is hard. It’s difficult. It’s finding the right balance to make sure that it flows through seamlessly without disrupting anything, without making too much of a noise or, you know, holding things back is is the difficult part, finding the right balance, which is where we spend a lot of time with a lot of our bank partners, with a lot of, you know, our distribution partners, because we have a two sided ecosystem, we have lenders on one side, we work with large OEMs, distribution partners on the other side. So we hear from both of them. So the reason the banks can also work with us is because we know what the market wants. We are working with different distribution channels. We get a lot of input there in terms of what the platform or what the functionality should be, the workflow should be, and all of that. So we are able to provide that relevant functionality, the workflows around it to ensure that, you know, the process is working the way it should from an end sales person standpoint. So we focus more on home improvement, healthcare and more complicated retail. It is not as complicated just because of, you know, how funds are dispersed and all of that.

Kevin Rosenquist: So if I’m in the market for an air conditioner and my and I got an HVAC guy and he that way he can offer me terms essentially is that but he gets paid and then and you guys your system does it does it shoot it out to lenders to kind of like choose which one is going to. How does it work? So let’s just say that I’m going to sit here and stumble. You’re the expert. You should just explain it.

Dheeraj Medikonda: And so we we.

Dheeraj Medikonda: Have a waterfall in the platform. So we don’t work with one, but we work with a suite of lenders that where there’s coverage up and down the credit spectrum from like super Prime all the way down to near prime. So we have coverage up and down the credit spectrum. So what we provide from that end sales person or contractor standpoint is when they walk into the consumer’s house, they’re trying to change an HVAC or whatever they’re trying to work on. They figure out what the exact pricing is, how much is down payment, you know, how much is going to be financed potentially. And that’s where when they say this you have options of financing. That is where our platform comes in. So we work with these direct contractors. And our primary way of acquiring all of these contractors is B to B to C while we do F5, which is, you know, our merchant facing brand. We have a lot of enterprise partners where we private label, white label solution. We sort of give them the control in terms of reaching out to their network, tapping into, tapping into their network. So there is a salesperson on the other side who has an app, a tablet, whatever device, you know, they put in the project breakdown or, you know, the breakdown of what is eventually going to be financed. Link goes out to the consumer. It can go through one application form, even though you have multiple lenders on the other side. We, the consumer always goes through one application form. There’s one sort of credit happening always that way there’s no impact to the credit score, and the consumer sees all the options.

Dheeraj Medikonda: Within a matter of couple of minutes. They see the option, they choose the option that they like, they move forward with the application. And the other benefit of our platform is we handle we and work very hard on this. With all the banks that we work with is we handle everything from KYC, AML, BSA, which is, you know, AML is anti-money laundering, KYC, know your customers. So all those checks, you don’t have to go to individual banks and do follow their process, which can be cumbersome, which is why it’s a number of days. Right. So a lot of all of these banks and partners that we work with subscribe to our policies. So we’ve spent a considerable amount of time with a lot of these large financial institutions to build these policies, have integrations in place with these best of breed vendors out there to make sure we handle it on their behalf. We have these large banks relying on the market to ensure that we are doing all those checks. So from an end user, consumer standpoint, it’s one application. They see the offer, they go through all these checks and a lot of that happens in the background. So unless we find something that is off or odd there isn’t any friction. This keeps moving forward. Then they go through all of the process, sign their docs would be a loan agreement would be done that might take 2 to 3 minutes. Consumers with their they’ve secured their financing.

Dheeraj Medikonda: The salesperson has secured the financing for the project. They move on to their next sales appointment, and when they’re ready to do the installation is a few different ways to do it. They can go request funding. We have a very user friendly portal for all of the end. We call them merchants, contractors or health care providers. We just call them merchants. So the merchants have their own portal where they can go track all of this in real time. They can request funding. And the other benefit of this is even though the merchants have access to different lenders, they don’t have to worry about signing contracts with multiple lenders. It’s is just one platform that they go sign up with. They tell us what products they want from what lenders permission it for them. It goes down the waterfall based on how it should go. Depending on various parameters. It goes from the waterfall and then they get one deposit regardless of which lender they the consumer eventually lands with. We handle all of that for them. So there is no accounting reconciliation where you’re getting six different deposits from six different banks. We handle all of that. So the banks let us handle that. So we streamline basically that whole consumer application journey. And also the back office because we’ve we’ve built technology, we’ve built the relevant controls while being extremely efficient and compliant to make sure it is a very simple process for everyone. Nobody has to worry about what is happening in the background. All of that technology takes care of all of that.

Kevin Rosenquist: That’s incredible. Yeah, you mentioned that you guys talk about being frictionless and removing friction. It’s a difficult thing when it comes to to lending and money like this. It’s just different than, I don’t know, ordering a t- shirt, you know, online. You know, it’s just different. How, how do you guys go about making it as frictionless as possible, but still like toeing that line of, you know, of being compliant?

Dheeraj Medikonda: Yeah. And that, that.

Dheeraj Medikonda: That’s always been the more difficult part of, you know, making sure everybody agrees to one policy, one procedure, one application form, which means you have to work with compliance, legal teams of every single financial, every.

Kevin Rosenquist: Place. Yeah. Yeah, totally.

Dheeraj Medikonda: Make sure everybody agrees on what we’re doing. And it is one policy for the end user. Right. So it is it was a painful process. But we went through that whole process of working with different institutions and a number of years of constantly working on that. Now we have this experience where the consumer goes through the process, but there is friction, there is friction, but there’s friction on by design, meaning, you know, there are certain points in the process where we do through additional things for the consumer to ensure they realize that they’re taking a loan, they know what monthly payment they’re signing up for. They know when the hard pull is happening.

Speaker4: So you’re saying almost.

Kevin Rosenquist: Like you can’t make it too easy?

Dheeraj Medikonda: Yeah. You don’t want them to be like we can. If you want to click, click and you’re done. But then you need to make sure the consumer realizes that, you know, hey, this is what the liability I’m taking on on a monthly basis. So you want to make sure that they know what they’re signing up for. So that so there is certain friction. But by design because you want to make sure the consumer always realizes that because they can get lost between the sales conversation and financing. And then before you realize you’re you have a loan, we don’t want that. We don’t want the consumers ever to be point, you know, where they don’t realize what they’re getting into. So there is friction. We do make sure there’s authentication happening on the platform. There are things where, you know, where we push out different things to the devices. And that way they can make sure that, you know, they’re looking at it, keying it, and then it shows certain information. So we make sure that they are on certain screens for a certain amount of time at a minimum by adding friction, which ensures that they’re looking at certain things. It’s just not next, next, next, and you’re done. So there is some friction, but by design. But the whole application journey in itself is a couple of minutes max.

Kevin Rosenquist: Wow, that’s so impressive though. And yeah, I think it’s funny how often we just just click, click, click through stuff because we want to get to the payoff. We want to get to whatever it is we’re trying to do, whether it’s read an article or play a game or whatever. So yeah, I guess in certain situations you you don’t want it to be too quick.

Dheeraj Medikonda: Yeah. You don’t want it to be too quick. You want to make sure that there are very few bad actors. But you know, you have to always plan for the worst, right? So you need to use some friction to ensure that nobody’s being taken advantage of. And even when the funds do go out, when, you know, we have a contractor medical provider come in and request funding for one of their clients who’s approved for financing through our platform, the consumer has to approve it. So a quick text message, a quick email that they get, they click on a link, check a couple of boxes, but they have to check those boxes to ensure that they realize that, okay, this is when I’m authorizing the release of the funds. This is when my payments start. So there is language in there to ensure that, you know, we we are always making sure the consumer is informed. There’s no surprises on the consumer side. Bring them into the experience when needed and have them go through certain content but more relevant, pointed content that they know what they’re signing up for. Always.

Kevin Rosenquist: It seems like.

Kevin Rosenquist: Financing at checkout is becoming more common. I brought up a firm. Obviously that’s the one that most people see, and it’s just because it’s Amazon, because everybody shops on Amazon. Do you see this continuing to expand into God everywhere? I mean, because it seems like it’s quite a value add for for vendors, for, you know, for contractors, it seems like it’s a great, a great way to encourage people to use your service.

Dheeraj Medikonda: The reason you.

Dheeraj Medikonda: Probably don’t have a lot of the larger ticket sizes, like home improvement, healthcare, you know, you don’t see a lot of those players out. There’s one. It is bigger ticket sizes. We go up to like $100,000 in loans, up to 15 years with our lending partner. So that’s a whole different level of risk. It’s just not somewhere where you buy something. You pay back in 3 to 6 months. It’s 15 years. So there’s different, different, uh, level of risk and everything. But in fact, because you don’t have players like that, didn’t historically have players like that. You have we’ve seen a lot of medical providers, dental providers who have in-house financing plan. So they because there wasn’t enough options out there where they had control, actually worked for them. They had to come up with these in-house financing plans, you know, where they were creating these different payment plans, where the consumer had to pay over time. But obviously it doesn’t work. There is one, you know, creating a contract and having someone sign for it, but ensuring that they know where to pay, when to pay. And all of that is a whole different art and science in itself. So there was a lot of need for it, but there weren’t enough products out there. Right products, right platforms out there that would address that, which is why, you know, which is where we saw the opportunity. Home improvement, health care, very different consumer risk profile, different product from traditional retail that gets paid off in a couple of months. Much longer term product, much longer it takes for the projects to complete. So it’s handled very different, which is why we focused more on that because there’s a lot of opportunity there. And we work with a lot of large OEMs and distribution networks on both government and healthcare.

Kevin Rosenquist: Do you guys work with anybody or do you pretty much stick to those those niche sort of markets? Do you if someone were listening and they were like, oh man, that sounds cool, I want to get involved with that. But they’re a totally different industry is that I’m assuming you can still work with them, right?

Dheeraj Medikonda: Yeah, the platform.

Dheeraj Medikonda: Is we’ve solved the most complex use case, which is home improvement, and we can do anything in between. And we.

Dheeraj Medikonda: Do.

Dheeraj Medikonda: Work with different merchants that operate in retail, do all kinds of retail. So we don’t have any limitations. For us, the platform is sort of agnostic to that. It is alone. A cardholder agreement is a cardholder agreements. It’s a financial product. For us. It doesn’t matter as long as we have a lender on the other side who’s ready to take on these loans. And we have distribution partner on the other side who’s able to get us the applications. We generally find we don’t have, uh, any limitations in terms of our technology or, you know, even our current lending stack that we have with the various banks that we work with, they pretty much operate in all different verticals.

Kevin Rosenquist: Awesome.

Kevin Rosenquist: Well, thank you very much for being here. I really appreciate you taking the time and kind of educating us about what you guys do. Super, super interesting and seems like the wave of the future.

Dheeraj Medikonda: No, no, thank you for having me. It was nice talking with you.