Consulting At its Best to Get Funding From Banks

DNA Growth-How did you start your business? What is the nature and the growth story of your business?
Ajay- My firm’s name is Launchpad FinServ. I am an ex-banker with an experience of 15 yrs. After working for all that while, it struck me that why should I work for a single bank? We took a decision and started our own venture in 2016.

It’s a financial consultancy for working capital finance. We provide consultancy to SMEs and MSMEs for their working capital finance requirements. About how they can reduce their costs, and what sort of funding is actually required for their business.

We have been in parallel with almost 20 banks. We provide our clients with consulting and the banks then fund them.

DNA Growth-What is USP of your business?
Ajay-

• Reduction of overall cost of funding
• Clients have higher repayment segment. We try to stabilize those things. We ensure that money reinvestment generation is from their own business rather than from external sources. I think, being an ex-banker I am able to gauge the customer’s requirements more efficiently.
• Also, in Ludhiana most of the consultants are mainly concerned about retail loans. Whereas, we started with working capital finance consultancy. That was in itself a USP. Other than us, only a few Chartered Accountants in the city were providing working capital consultancy.

DNA Growth-What are some challenges that you had to face?
Ajay- Sometimes we work for a very lesser amount because we are not able to get pay-outs from 50% of the banks and we do not believe in fetching extra charges from our clients. This is because our main motive is to build relationships.

DNA Growth-How do you think Covid-19 has impacted your business?
Ajay-

• The impact is very gruesome. Firstly, all of my fraternity lost 7-8 days of March that we were very critical. We were all looking forward to them. But, due to the sudden lockdown, couldn’t achieve the best of them. It was the month end, yearend, everything.
• Most of the pay-outs have been stopped. Which is another big problem that we are facing are the moment.
• Government has given a moratorium of 3 months, its good for clients because it helps them maintain their liquidity. But, without a backup over the months the liquidity will be in a very bad shape. Every coming day the buffer is going away.

DNA Growth-How do you suggest your client and our readers to cope up with the situation?
Ajay- So, I have been in touch with my clients and I have observed how many of them are concerned about what else the government is going to do, to ease the situation. Instead of being concerned about what the government is going to give, the first priority should be to dispose off our current stocks, on an immediate basis. It is important before those stocks turn dead. This step is very imperative to keep the business running.

Also, since most of the clients have exhausted their working capital limit, they should approach their banks because every bank is offering 10 to 20% to the clients. The only thing is people need to approach the bank because its not going to happen the other way around.

The other thing is, all those people with retail loans should immediately link them to repo rates instead of MCLR. The rate of interest will reduce by 1-1.5%, which is huge.