By Sindhu Kashyaap | Her Story | November 9, 2021
Shweta Aprameya knew that if she had to start up, it had to be in the financial sector and investment space.
After completing her studies at MIT Sloan, Shweta worked in the UK in the financial sector, enabling digital finance, using technology in the emerging markets.
“Around 2008-2010, the world around us was transforming, and yet there was a significant portion of the population that didn’t have financial access. I felt technology could be a great enabler,” Shweta tells HerStory in a conversation.
After returning to India in 2010, Shweta decided to look closely at the segment. She focused on Mumbai’s Dharavi market.
Working as a VP at Fino Payments Bank, Shweta worked on the Alpha Payment Services — a mobile payments venture focused on providing bank-led financial services to the masses with an operator and device-agnostic model.
“I knew that technology could be a great leveller, and my goal was inclusion. So, by 2013, I started working on developing a mobile financial services platform to power micro banking and payments for the bottom of the pyramid,” she says.
Shweta had built a low-cost savings micro deposit machine, which was to be deployed by banks to facilitate savings and onboard people into the world of digital finance. The first machine was deployed at the Dharavi market.
“Working here, I had realised there was a need to focus on micro-entrepreneurs, who needed access to affordable capital. For this, there was a need to be more proactive than the existing system,” she says.