Hyderabad-based Pencilton helping teens manage money better
Hyderabad: Hyderabad-based Pencilton, a teen-focused fintech startup, is striving for enhancing digital financial literacy through its app and establishing unique metrics to keep itself ahead of the market, with an aim to make it the platform with the highest engagement and retention rate. Pencilton, founded by BITS Pilani alumni Vishwajit Pureti, Ashish Singh, Pallavi Tipparaju […]
Updated On - 20 November 2021, 03:32 PM
Hyderabad: Hyderabad-based Pencilton, a teen-focused fintech startup, is striving for enhancing digital financial literacy through its app and establishing unique metrics to keep itself ahead of the market, with an aim to make it the platform with the highest engagement and retention rate.
Pencilton, founded by BITS Pilani alumni Vishwajit Pureti, Ashish Singh, Pallavi Tipparaju and Viraj Gadde in 2020, enables the financial inclusion and digital financial literacy of teens and students across India through PencilCard. This RuPay debit card can be activated within a few seconds via the Pencilton app. The company works with different banking partners for the card.
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Teenagers and students can use the card to receive, manage and spend their pocket money while managing it all from the Pencilton app, which acts like a mini wealth manager. Parents can use the app to give pocket money, set parental controls/tracking features such as spend limits and approve money requests, etc. The KYC is done for the parents and Pencilton directly engages with them.
Vishwajit Pureti, co-founder & Marketing CEO of Pencilton, told Telangana Today, “Money is the epicentre of all economic activities that humans undertake, yet the irony is that majority of adults in India are financially illiterate. Bridging this is the primary motivation and Pencilton aims to catch them young and inculcate financial literacy among kids, teens and students using their pocket money efficiently.”
Financial literacy
The company’s focus has gradually moved from mere financial literacy to digital financial literacy and has been engaged with National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) both in terms of innovation and compliance.
The fintech startup launched its beta version in December 2020, aiming to educate the young generation to understand the importance of money. Over 15,000 families have taken the card in the beta version, where the team evaluated its usage patterns up to March 2021.
The full-fledged commercial roll out of the platform is expected within December-January period and new features will be introduced every two months, he informed.
Addition of features
On the revenue model, Pureti said, “We are building the user base and the physical card costs Rs 199 and there is no additional cost. We will be adding more products and features to increase our revenue sources. We may even explore gifting features on the platform soon.”
As of now teens can use the prepaid debit card without requiring the bank account and they can view the balance and spending breakup. There is also a piggy bank feature, which acts as a digital vault that helps teens save money. Parents can send pocket money and track the money spent by their children. New features will be introduced in the next 2-3 months.
In terms of funding, he said, the company has raised $330,000 in a pre-seed round by Jupiter and other angel investors, this July. Post the commercial roll out of the platform by January 2022, the company will evaluate funding requirements to meet its expansion needs.
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