RAHUL SHINGHAL

CEO, Tazapay

Financial technology founder and expert Rahul Shinghal leads Tazapay, a fintech solution for SMEs that helps facilitate crossborder trade. Last Year, Shinghal and a group of co-founders (with financial leadership backgrounds from Stripe, PayPal, Grab, Standard Chartered) and others came together to tackle what they have been observing as a challenge in international trade. “We created and launched Tazapay, a solution to help SMEs streamline cross-border transactions via digital background checks and escrow payments. The continued growth of Tazapay is my primary focus at the moment.” Cross-border commerce for SMEs is a huge addressable market – approximately $8 trillion globally – yet easily facilitating trade across borders remains a big challenge, Shinghal explains. “It’s largely based on trust, and with people unable to travel at the moment it can be hard to feel confident about a trade partner.” This leads to a significant number of deals falling through, he expounds, inhibiting growth for local and regional economies. “Our prime objective is to solve this problem for SMEs by providing them with a dedicated digital escrow tool that gives both buyers and sellers peace of mind (by ensuring funds are securely held until shipment and delivery of goods is confirmed); helps them digitize; and gives them more business opportunities to ultimately bolster regional and global trade.” Tazapay draws motivation and focus from seeing the issue not just as a business opportunity, but also an obligation to SMEs. Small businesses have been largely overlooked when it comes to efficient cross-border trade, Shinghal says. For large transactions, banks have always offered letters of credit, but these can be unwieldy and inaccessible for small businesses, he says. “Although the solution to this problem for smaller organizations has always been clear-a digital escrow solutioninternational trade is complicated and those with the ability to take it on have shied away from it.” Tazapay is committed to embracing this complexity and providing a fully digital platform that is easy to use and integrate into merchants’ workflows. How do you prepare for the daily grind? The first thing I do in the morning is to check how the US market performed the previous night. I then have a leisurely cup of tea and read the news. I am not much of a morning person and do my workouts in the evening. How do you keep your momentum? Seeing the ways in which our customers save time and grow their businesses is a huge part of what keeps us going. In addition to providing easy to use technology, we are also trying to give business owners something they don’t always have a lot of, which is peace of mind. It takes time to look for information about each new potential business partner to see if they are credible, and our customers have shared that many deals fall through because one party or the other is not completely confident, sending them back to square one. Even when a deal is agreed, there’s a certain level of stress in deciding who will pay first or who will ship first, and then in waiting for goods and payments to arrive. Speeding up deals while also relieving stress for our customers is hugely motivating. How do you know you’re performing well? On a personal level, I know I’m performing well when my team is equipped with the tools they need to do their best work, and when I’ve met my obligations outside work, such as adequate time with my family and for self-development.