moneyHOP Success Story: India's First Cross Border Neo-Bank - Hop

Company Profile is an initiative by ListMyStartUp to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by moneyHOP.

Being India's Cross-Border Neobank, moneyHOP is enhancing the cross-border banking experience of Indians like never before! An interesting point to note here is - moneyHOP just commenced commercial operations and is already registering a 30% MoM growth in terms of customers.

moneyHOP is a neobank that provides a cross-border banking experience to people via two products, i.e. HopRemit and HOP app’s multi-currency bank account with international debit+Forex card.

moneyHOP - Company Highlights

  • Startup Name-moneyHOP
  • Headquarters-Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
  • Industry-Financial Services
  • Founded-2019
  • Founder-Mayank Goyal
  • Total Funding Raised-$2.5 million (Jan 2022)
  • Website-moneyhop.co

moneyHOP - About

  • moneyHOP is a neobank that provides a cross-border banking experience to Indians via two products, i.e. HOPRemit and HOP app’s multi-currency bank account with international debit+Forex card.
  • HOP Remit extends instant, secure, and cost-effective remittance solutions to Indian customers for their outbound needs. On the other hand, the HOP app empowers its customers with a truly globalized banking experience with the ability to save, invest, borrow, and spend via ‘ONE Global Account, ONE Global Card’. It provides multi-currency wallets, charges nearly 0% forex markup, and offers completely paperless currency exchange in an ‘anytime, anywhere’ format. Furthermore, moneyHOP empowers its customers to lock in currency exchange rates for their future needs.

moneyHOP - Industry Details

  • moneyHOP operates in the cross-border payments and remittance industry. At around $83 billion, India is the world's largest market for inward remittance flow. The transaction value of global remittances and cross-border payments is expected to rise from $37.15 trillion in 2020 to $39.9 trillion by 2026.
  • Also, the Indian fintech market was valued at $50 billion in 2021 and is expected to grow to $150 billion by 2025.
  • As moneyHOP commenced operations only a few months ago, it is still at an early stage and the current market share is not significant. Mr. Mayank expects the industry to grow 15 to 20 percent YoY and by 2024, engage about 45 million global travellers, 2 to 3 million Indian outbound students and a $45-50 billion outbound remittance market.

moneyHOP - Founder

Mayank Goyal is the sole founder of moneyHOP. He spearheads all moneyHOP operations.

Mayank Goyal - Founder and CEO, moneyHOP

  • Mayank Goyal has completed his Bachelor of Engineering, Telecommunications from PES University and his Master of Science, Financial Engineering from Imperial College Business School. He is also a Chartered Financial Analyst. He currently serves as the founder and CEO of moneyHOP.
  • moneyHOP has three mentors at present including a banking veteran, foreign exchange payments expert, and senior executives from a Big Tech company.

moneyHOP - Startup Story

  • Mr. Mayank reminisces about the inspiration & background story behind moneyHOP. This is what he says - "The inspiration was a lot personal. My parents used to come and visit me in London. They used to get their money exchanged via a local money changer who would charge them a 5%-6% markup over the Inter-bank rate. Once visiting Dehradun, I wanted to remit money from India to the UK and experienced the ordeal myself. It involved heavy paperwork and I had to wait for 5 days to get the transaction done. The customer experience was absolutely terrible. I realized that thousands of people had to go through such ordeals for the lack of a better service. It was then that the idea dawned upon me to address the need gap"
  • He spoke with 100 people having diverse socioeconomic backgrounds. His findings were that this market was dominated by PSBs and the process involved heavy paperwork, was branch based and lacked customer experience. Mayank then obtained an FFMC license from the RBI and initiated our discussions with banks and payment processors. After the association with VISA and an AD-I license holder bank, many prototypes were built, tested, and enhanced. It paved the way for HOPRemit, which was launched in January 2021.
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moneyHOP - Product and USP

  • moneyHOP provides a cross-border banking experience to Indians via two products, i.e. HOPRemit and HOP app’s multi-currency bank account with international debit+Forex card.
  • Any person can directly log on to www.moneyhop.co or download the HOP app and register in less than 3 minutes! They can then either send cash via HOPRemit or engage in globalized digital banking with the HOP app plus card solution.
  • The solution serves the needs of oversea travellers as well as Indian students who wish to send money abroad. It has minimized the turnaround time for this entire process, making it more cost-effective and eliminating the paperwork while adhering to all regulatory norms.
  • "This digital remittance experience, near 0% markup on-demand currency exchange along with ‘One Global Account’ & ‘One-Global Card’ as some of our USPs. We think about the product as a cross-border neo-banking platform which enables Indians to ‘Send’ & ‘Spend’, economically and conveniently across the globe." Mayank added.
  • Tools Used by moneyHOP to Run the Startup
  • The tools used by moneyHOP to run the startup are Slack, Atlassian, Google Suite, AWS, and HubSpot.

moneyHOP - Name, Tagline and Logo

  • The idea of Mayank was to provide a platform which enables customers to ‘hop’ the money from one place to another and hence the name ‘moneyHOP’. Its tagline is ‘Smarter, Faster, Better.’

moneyHOP - Business Model and Revenue Model

  • moneyHOP has active partnerships with VISA and AD-I license-holder banks. It acquires customers directly via digital marketing channels (B2C) and also through partnerships with universities, education consultants, international schools etc. (B2B2C). The company didn't directly reveal its revenue model.

moneyHOP - Startup Launch and Customer Retention

  • As recalled by Mayank, the initial days revolved around brainstorming about how to effectively solve the challenge while using minimal resources. The team at moneyHOP also applied for relevant licenses and worked on the back-end technology infrastructure in the meantime. It had a referral program and the first 100 users were achieved through a mix of referrals and digital marketing.

moneyHOP - Achievement and Recognition

  • moneyHOP was incubated at IIM Bangalore.
  • It was also the only Indian startup to be a part of the Mass Challenge Boston program.

moneyHOP - Challenges Faced

  • Banking partnership was the biggest teething issue for moneyHOP. Mayank had to constantly visit Mumbai and meet all of the banks. However, they somehow saw him as an outsider. It took him a lot of effort to convince them that "I (Mayank) believe in the India story". moneyHOP shared its vision with them and explained how powerful it can end up being. The team made the relevance of the product clear with constant efforts, grit, and persistence.

moneyHOP - Competitors

  • moneyHOP doesn't have any major competition in the Indian market. However, on a global scale, its top competitors include Airwallex, NiYo, Nium, Fi, Transferwise, and Revolut.

moneyHOP - Future Plans

  • moneyHOP just commenced its commercial operations and is already registering a 30% MoM growth in terms of customers.

FAQs

Who is the founder of moneyHOP?

  • Mayank Goyal is the founder and CEO of moneyHOP.

What is moneyHOP?

  • moneyHOP is a neobank that provides cross-border banking experience to Indians via two products, i.e. HOP Remit and HOP app’s multi-currency bank account with international debit + FX card.

Who are the competitors of moneyHOP?

  • Some of the competitors of moneyHOP include Airwallex, NiYo, Nium, Fi, Transferwise, and more.

How much funding has been raised by moneyHOP?

  • moneyHOP has raised a total of $1.2 million in funding. The last round was raised in September 2021.