Afinoz: India’s Most Promising Digital Finance Brand

Selected as India’s Most Promising Digital Finance Solutions brand, Afinoz creates great value by developing a complete digital ecosystem that caters to every financial needs automatically.

Director – Rachna Suneja and Pawneshwar Datt Rai

Co-Founder – Rachna Suneja

Company Mission:

To leverage innovation and make customer experience a seamless one with offering the A to Z of finance under a common roof.

Ethos of the brand:

Integrity, Customer-centricity, Innovation and  Neutrality

Countries the brand is present: India, USA

What would you define as the unique value proposition of the product: the functional, emotional and differentiating product benefits that have contributed to providing an enduring brand experience to customers?

Rising living standards is boosting the demand for personal growth. More so in economies where 65-70% of demography comprises of millenials. This need for personal growth manifests into aspirations like houses, cars, vacations, education etc. To achieve these goals one needs to have a hawk eye over the finance management which is a tricky affair.

Enter Afinoz – The A to Z of Finance. We give users an ecosystem where they can weigh their options and move forward by making responsible financial decisions according to their goals.    

What are the physical, character and personality attributes of the brand that have evoked and inspired consumers’ self-expression and personal identity?

The personification of a brand provides insight into the most effective ways to communicate with a target audience. We are more receptive to communication delivered by someone we have an emotional connection with than another who we do not relate to. Afinoz is able to forge similar relationships with it’s audience by genuinely adopting some basic fundamentals of human behavior and characteristics, resulting in greater receptiveness. Our tone of communication is sincere which invokes honesty and reliability in the eyes of the customers.

Please provide an insight into the brand marketing strategies that have effectively penetrated consumers’ psyche, established a meaningful relationship with the target audiences and ensured positive brand perception.

So far within a short span of time Afinoz has covered a lot of ground when it comes to making the brand’s presence felt among consumers. Our first brush with tapping the customer psyche happened when we started campaigns around Personal Loans exclusively for people with lower in hand salaries. The response was encouraging and we will not shy away from admitting that we really didn’t expect it to achieve us such heartening results. Soon after that successful campaign we launched another, this time it was related to people looking for loan balance transfers and the results were quite insightful. So for us, it is more like a slow and steady approach which has kept our brand recognition high.

How has the brand extended its presence to the frontiers of Internet advertising and social networking? What is the level of significance the brand accords to utilizing social media as a competitive edge?

Afinoz believes in leveraging the power of social media to full potential. Currently we are inclined to reach out to quality customers via Facebook and it’s ad services like retargeting. Retargeting advertising is a new, highly-targeted marketing tool. Instead of marketing to all prospects, including those who have never visited your site or have shown no prior interest or engagement, retargeting focuses on more qualified prospects who have visited your site but who may have yet to engage with the content. When prospects visit our website, the company’s ad then follows them through their online experience via sidebars and headers. For Afinoz, retargeting provides a cost-effective way to advertise to our prospects with the right message at the right time.

Please outline a few key marketing endeavors in the past decade that you feel have been landmark ini-tiatives in reinforcing the legacy of the brand’s promise to influence consumer intent and enhanced the brand’s propensity to drive affirmative consumer action

Post demonetization, the drive to shift towards a digital economy is higher than ever. In order to acclimatise with the ongoing global trends, India is steadily catching up to be the front runner as one of the largest consumers of online credit and personal finance related services. The biggest endeavour in front of us was to establish the desired brand connect with the consumers, especially when there are other finance based firms mushrooming the startup ecosystem. As a solution, we started partnering up with noted financial institutions which gave us a boost in garnering customers’ trust. Once the trust was established, things were quite easy for us in scaling up our campaigns.

How has the brand derived strength from innovation as a sustainable differentiating strategy adding to long-term brand equity? Please provide a few instances of measures implemented towards this goal.

Innovation is like change, it is here to stay. For us innovation begins with AI and the power of machine learning. Leveraging this technology not only allowed us to build a neutral platform where you can cater your financial needs; but it also gave us a distinct brand equity. By giving our customers an unbiased and neutral choice we have made sure that the ultimate power lies in the hands of our customers. Our technology wing is working relentlessly on developing new products and are determined to continue working towards the ultimate goal which is to give people a robust financial ecosystem where they can literally find everything under one roof(A to Z of finance).

What is the key leadership values that drives the brand?

“Transparency in lieu with customer centricity” or you can also say “Authenticity” is the key leadership value that drives brand Afinoz. Finance is a responsible domain which rests on the crux of reliability and trust. The transparency is not just limited to our customers but employees as well. The leadership believes in empowering the team to create the synergy of internal branding. After all It’s the culture inside which ultimately reflects on the work ethics. With Afinoz we are giving authentic solution to financial roadblocks that trouble our customers in achieving their goals.

What type of employee satisfaction programs are conducted by your brand

Employee satisfaction is a crucial ingredient in the recipe for success. If staff members are not treated like stakeholders in an organization, productivity and morale both suffer in the longer term. Afinoz believes in giving ownership to it’s employees in whatever tasks they are set out to accomplish. At an organizational level, the employees are given monetary benefits like Employee Stock Options(ESOPS) which bolster the faith of personal growth as well within the organization. Team outbound trips and cocktail dinner parties are just the icing on the cake when everyone functions as an important tool functioning in a giant machinery.

How much does your brand emphasis on employee training & development, kindly elaborate.

The talent and skills needed to conduct business successfully is not limited to any particular group of people. Afinoz has a long-standing commitment to a meaningful policy of equal employment opportunity. The Company’s policy is to ensure equal employment and advancement opportunity for all qualified individuals without distinction or discrimination because of race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, age, national origin, disability, covered veteran status, marital status or any other unlawful basis. As part of this commitment, Afinoz makes reasonable accommodations for applicants and qualified employees who have shown the resolve and hunger to grow and adapt to new challenges.

List the 5 most critical success factors of the brand in order of importance and kindly elaborate the same

Customer connect – Striking a chord with customers is very important when it comes to finance industry. We understand our customer’s needs and act first and foremost in our customers’ interests.

Innovation – Digital services have become a key priority as more emerging players  draw customers away from traditional financial institutions. There are numerous technologies that are driving this disruption— AI & machine learning, big data & analytics, digital currencies and blockchain technology, mobile payments. For us it’s  AI-machine learning enabled algorithm which gives users a neutral or unbiased choice.

Brand communication – In any industry, a strong brand communication is crucial for business success. Companies that have established who they are, their core tenants, and key differentiators (and how to leverage them) are the brands who find the deepest user loyalty. Fintech is no different, and should arguably rely the heaviest on a strong brand strategy to communicate and drive awareness, whether it be announcing a new product or overhauling a website design.

Transparency – Digitalizing has established the fact that knowledge is true power and with knowledge comes transparency. Transparency in fintech can be described as giving customers the information they need to make an informed decision.

Neutrality – Developing a sense of neutrality, whether it’s the management or the employees is a must, especially when we are looking forward to create a synergy where everyone compliments the other. Productivity takes a back seat when there is biasness in the system. A clear pathway to a healthy workplace, is a good morale and a sense of teamwork. Both these traits can be nourished using the approach of inclusion and neutrality. The same sentiment of neutrality will apply on our customers, who, irrespective of their gradient of association/service, will be looked upon with the same intensity.

What are the core values that drives the brand

Integrity – We live by the highest standards of integrity in everything we say and do. We communicate openly; we invite, provide and respect challenging views. We earn the trust of all of our customers by always acting with integrity and holding ourselves to high standards.

Customer-centricity – We earn our customers’ trust by placing them at the core of our organisation. We deliver true value by understanding and serving our customers’ needs best. We aim to ensure that our clients benefit from the value created by the products and services we provide to them.

Innovation – We believe in responsible innovation, focused not only on finding creative solutions to our clients’ needs but also on ensuring that those solutions are suitable, sustainable and fall within clear boundaries. We continuously embrace new and better ways of doing things while fully taking account of potential risks.

What are the core competencies of the brand

Brand Afinoz is all about covering the A to Z of Finance under a common platform. The platform where the power lies with the user to pick and choose from different options that come their way after our smart algorithm AI bot addresses their concern.

Credit, Investment, Insurance, or Savings – our Advanced Financial Technology helps you discover solutions, across different product classes. We are determined to make the Afinoz way of life a reality in the near future.

AFINOZ.COM is an online financial marketplace for customized rate quotes on loans and investment products in India. The company is owned by DS Finworld Pvt. Ltd. Our objective is to make personal financial decisions easy, seamless, and transparent for our customers. We have designed a system that ensures faster processing and quick disbursal of the loan.