How This Fintech Startup Encourages Education By Providing Financial Assistance- LendingPitStop

• ByStartupStory     |    August 26, 2021

“One must always be available for their customers (be it partner, lending institutes or the end customer). The only thing people remember is the quality of service irrespective of the product, product owner or industry,” said Saurabh Buchha, Co-Founder, LendingPitStop in an interactive conversation with Startup Story

Launched in January 2021 by Shreyans Banthia and Saurabh Buchha. “LendingPitStop” means the one stop solution of finance for all the borrowers. The startup is aimed at addressing the needs of Fees Financing in the education sector thus playing an important role for Education Institutes and Parents. LeadingPitStop vision is to embrace the education ecosystem with “Zero Cost Education Financing” and cater to a segment that has an enthusiasm to build a prosperous future for India. Children Fee Financing is a project of LendingPitStop (LPS) through which Education institutes get their fees funded for the entire course upfront and parents get an opportunity to repay the same in multiple Zero Cost Economic Monthly Instalments (EMIs). The FinTech startup partners with schools and EdTech companies to reach out to each and every parent for providing financing solutions.

 Spark Of An Idea

While One of the co-founders was working with one of the leading financial institutions in the education space who were financing only for the higher education segment. That’s how the idea pop-up to cater children studying with schools, tutoring classes, and the EdTech platform.

So, while incorporating their business into the education space they realized that schools are asking hefty fees without any financing option for parents. They believe parents should pay on a monthly basis, and not upfront for the whole year. They realized that this was the problem with most of the parents as they don’t have the savings to pay upfront. This was the reason LPS came into existence – to smoothen out the financial crunch facing parents. Given the protests across the country due to fee hikes in the recent pandemic, it was time to address this issue. It addresses a core issue of lump sum fee payment and on-time fee collection by educational institutes.

Education financing is a massive under-served opportunity in India where a tiny percentage of students have access to bank credit, so the startup provides an affordable solution that requires absolutely no collaterals, deposits, payment gateway charges, processing or application fees. LPS frees the parents from the hassle of paying fees quarterly, semester-wise, annually or availing interest-ridden loans from the market.

 What Makes LendingPitStop Stand Apart From The Crowd?

As rightly said by our country’s Nobel Peace Prize Winner Kailash Satyarthi that LEARNING should be the BIRTH RIGHT of every person and every person want to provide quality education to their future generation, but as we know everything comes for a price and in today’s world the vertical spike in education cost across has impacted the dreams of most or rather every person and deprived them of the opportunity of imparting quality education.

So here LendingPitStop role comes in where they let you pay any type of education fees like School fees, EdTech platform fees, Coaching fees, Fees for work integrated courses, fees for vocational education, fees for UpSkilling courses, and the list continues…you can use LPS to pay for it. LPS will pay the whole amount on time on behalf of you and you can pay it back in Economic Monthly Instalments (EMIs).

 Mission & Vision

The startup has partnered with a number of educational institutes across PAN India and has made this credit facility accessible to hundreds of students so far. LPS vision is to embrace the education ecosystem with “Zero Cost Education Financing” and cater to a segment which has an enthusiasm to build a prosperous future for India. The company’s mission is to never let anyone compromise on their dream for their child’s education with Children Fee Financing.

 The founders explained their core USP i.e., to provide solutions for parents, children & educational institutes with the following objects.

For Parents: Foremost, it offers Seamless digital process. Absolutely no interest on the payment to be made by the parents. In addition to that Zero Processing Fee that means no additional cost to be incurred by the parent to avail this option. There are no hidden costs over and above the total fee mentioned by the school for disciplined customers. Better quality Education

For Schools: Ease of working Capital, Better Reconciliation, Reduction in administrative cost, increase in admission penetration and improve operational efficiency.

 Team & The Members

LPS has qualified professionals who have joined various industries with the majority of them being from the lending industry. The amount of experience and the homely work environment helps the company to give their best shot for each of the team members. They believe in the concept of completing the work irrespective of the employee location.

Challenges Faced So Far

As we all know, whenever there is new development there is resistance in the market with respect to its acceptability. The major challenge the startup has faced is the pandemic scenario wherein all schools were shut w.r.t physical presence of students and constant demand from parents for reducing the fees created havoc in the Children Fees Financing model. And gradually on account of digital schooling things have improved but there is still a resistance at school level for incorporation of new models. They are continuously following up with schools and explaining to them the benefits of the model for all the co-related parties associated as per the product which is schools, parents and students. In order to create market presence, they’ve diversified themselves into upskilling, vocational, tutoring, EdTech platforms so as to run our revenue cycle.

Customer Feedback

Overall customer experience of LPS is more than satisfactory on account of digital journey with minimal documentation and faster Turnaround Time (TAT) that allows them to capture the market share in a seamless manner. They are constantly engaged with all the startup related events in the community as well as providing better opportunities in comparison to their peers.

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