Manager - Operation Risk and Compliance

Location: Bangalore

Reporting Line: Departmental Head

About WeRize

Founded in 2019 by Vishal Chopra and Himanshu Gupta, WeRize is building India’s largest full
stack financial services brand for 300 million underserved middle-class customers who live in
4000+ small towns of India. This customer segment is not served by private sector banks, Insurers
and Mutual Fund companies due to their low ticket-size and lifetime value and is dependent on
PSU/Govt. banks. PSU/Government banks rarely provide financial products beyond basic savings
accounts and these customers lack access to unsecured loans, credit cards, health and life
insurance and investment products. WeRize manufactures innovative Credit, Savings and Group
Insurance products designed for this customer base keeping in mind their needs, requirements
and purchasing power, with a view to add a layer of financial security to their lives and enable
access to credit.

While customers in these geographies use smartphones, they need proper guidance and support
when purchasing the right financial products for themselves. So, a pure digital model doesn’t
work for this segment. WeRize has innovated on this front through its ‘Finance ki online dukaan
(Social Shopify of Finance)’, a first of its kind social distribution tech platform in the financial
services space that educates and enables local financially literate freelancers across these small
towns to source business through online and offline channels, recommend the right financial
product(s) to customers as well as provide after sales support. These freelancers, who are located
in more than 2000+ towns and cities, earn as much as INR 30,000 a month from WeRize in
commissions.

Our social distribution platform supported by financially literate freelancers means exceptionally
low cost of customer acquisition (CAC) and operations costs compared to both fully digital and
on-the-ground financial services providers. Digital conversions among this target group are way
lower when compared to upper income customers in metros and hence pure digital CAC doesn’t
work for this segment. While companies like LIC and Fino Bank also rely on freelancer distribution,
they deploy local on-field teams/branches to manage freelancers in every city. That results in very
high CAC and operations costs for such companies. WeRize on the other hand, has been able to
acquire, train and manage thousands of freelancers in 1000+ cities only through its tech platform
and without any feet-on-street team of its own. This results in highly profitable business model
for Werize.

To know more about the company, please visit: https://www.werize.com/

Key Metrics

• Annualized Revenue Run Rate of $25Mn as of June 2023. (Approx $2Mn per month).We
are growing aggressively and our revenues are doubling every 8-9 months
• Profitability- Unlike most of other startups, we are already profitable because of our
best-in-class unit economics. We expect to make $2-3Mn of Net profits in the FY’24 and
$10Mn+ of net profits in FY’25 while growing aggressively.
• We are aiming for IPO in 2026 with 3 years of profits and aggressive growth
• Geography Covered- Served customers in 2000+ cities pan india. Aim to cover all 4000
cities in next 3 years.

Fund Raise
Funds Raised: $26 million (INR 192 Crore)
Valuation - $ 115.5Mn (INR 900 Crore)
Stage: Pre- Series B (raised June 2022)

Investors:

- British International Investment (BII)-UK Government’s investment fund

(Formally known as CDC group, BII is the British government’s investment fund. It’s a 10 billion dollar+
impact focused fund that has invested in some of the largest banks and NBFCs of India.

- Sony Innovation Fund, Japan

Sony Innovation Fund is the investment arm of Japan’s Multi-billion dollar Sony Corporation.

- Kalaari Capital
(One of the largest Indian VC with $850MN AUM and investments such as Myntra, CureFit, Dream11,
ElasticRun, Upstox, Simplilearn)

- Picus Capital , Germany

(Fund run by Alexander Samwer- Co-Founder of Rocket Internet that had
multiple billion Dollar + exits/IPOs – Lazada (SE-ASIA), Jumia (AFRICA), DeliveryHero(EU) )

- 3one4 Capital
(Early-Stage Fund with $300Mn AUM and companies such as NeoBank Open , Licious & Jupiter Neobank in
its portfolio)

- Orios Ventures
(Early-stage fund with companies like Ola, Pharmeasy and GoMechanic in its portfolio)
Leadership Team:
Vishal Chopra, Co-Founder & CEO:
- Ex-CBO Lendingkart – India’s largest Fintech Lender ($150Mn+ fund raise)
- Fist hire of Amazon India - part of the leadership team that launched Amazon.in
- Regional Director, Souq.com - largest e-commerce player in the Middle East. Raised
$425Mn, acquired by Amazon
- MBA, ISB Hyderabad
Himanshu Gupta, Co-Founder & COO:
- Ex-VP and Head of Data Science, Lendingkart – created AI/ML models and maintained
NPAs < 2% vs 8% industry avg
- Data Scientist, IHS Markit
- BTech, IIT Delhi
- 10+ years’ experience in AI/ML

Leadership Team:
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- Head of Collections:
- Ex-South India Head-Collections, Bajaj Finance; managed 800-member team
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- Head of Product:
- BTech, IIT Kanpur; Ex-Product Leader at Lendingkart and Flipkart
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- Head of Technology:
- Btech CS, IIT Kanpur; Ex-Tech Leader at Paytm and Medlife
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- Head of Business:
- MBA- IMT Ghaziabad, Ex- Business Leader, Lendingkart
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- Head of Credit Ops:

- Ex-Regional Head, HDB (HDFC subsidiary)

- Head of Data Science:

- Ex head of Data Science at Udaan. BTech and Mtech from Indian Statistical Institute
(ISI) ,Kolkata.
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- Head of Banking Partnerships and Debt Raise :

- Ex head of debt/capital markets at Udaan , MBA – XLRI Jamshedpur
About the team:
The operation risk and compliance team at WeRize plays a critical role in all the company level
operation risk decisions, both small and big. This is a strategic team that helps Werize to
understand the different risk, compliance matrix and comply with the regulatory requirements
from time to time.

In This Role, You Will

• Act as a SME to establish, implement and maintain operation risk standards and programs to
drive compliance with federal, state, agency, legal, regulatory and Corporate Policy
requirements.
• Oversee the Front Line's execution and challenges appropriately on compliance related
decisions.
• Provide oversight and monitoring of risk-based compliance programs.
• Provide compliance risk expertise and consulting for projects and initiatives with moderate
risk for a business line or functional area.
• Monitor reporting, escalation, and timely remediation of issues, deficiencies or regulatory
matters regarding compliance risk management.
• Provide direction to the business on developing corrective action plans and effectively
managing regulatory policy change.
• Report findings and make recommendations to senior management.
• Interpret policies, procedures, and compliance requirements.
• Collaborate and consult with peers, colleagues and managers to resolve issues and achieve
goals.
• Work with complex business units, rules and regulations on moderate risk and compliance
matters.
• Receive direction from leaders and exercise independent judgment while developing the
knowledge to understand function, policies, procedures, and compliance requirements.

What can you expect?

• Showcasing and honing your skills in a leading fintech.
• Work in a challenging environment with one of the best fintech teams in the industry.
• Riding the growth bandwagon of a high growth company.

What are we looking for?

• Strong knowledge of Indian banking products, operation risk policies and commercial
banking businesses.
• Strong knowledge of Indian banking laws, regulations and compliance
• Strong familiarity with Microsoft Suite
• Excellent administration skills with strong data organizing and file structuring capabilities.
• Strong communication and collaboration skills with front line and independent risk
management functions.
 • Strong attention to detail, ability to understand multiple information sources and arrive at
summaries and analyses.

Preferred Qualifications & Experience

• Level of experience: 2 to 4 years
• Experience in operational risk / compliance teams of NBFCs or Banks preferred.
• Graduate/ Postgraduate in Law, Management.