Narmi’s Co-Founder Nikhil Lakhanpal - building an API-driven digital banking platform
Oct 30, 2023
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Nikhil Lakhanpal, Co-Founder at Narmi, discusses creating a superior customer experience through API-driven digital banking. They cover segmenting and targeting customers, selling to risk-averse financial institutions, main competitors, and the future of the banking sector. Nikhil shares Narmi's short-term goals and envisions Narmi as the digital partner for financial institutions in 5 years.
Narmi provides financial institutions with an API-driven digital banking platform that enhances customer experiences.
Narmi differentiates itself by focusing on user experience, innovation, and continuous product evolution.
Deep dives
Overview of NAMI and its Mission
NAMI is a digital banking platform that offers financial institutions access to various products, including digital account opening, consumer and business digital banking, and an admin platform. The company aims to provide superior customer experiences and has raised $35 million in funding. NAMI was founded by Nikhil Luckampal and Chris Griffin in 2016, who were motivated by their experience running a financial institution and their desire for a better digital banking solution.
NAMI's Product Offerings
NAMI provides a wide range of products and services to financial institutions, such as consumer and business account opening, consumer and business digital banking, and an admin platform. These products are designed to enhance the digital experience for customers and are supported by over 75 integrations. NAMI aims to be the go-to digital partner for financial institutions, offering a comprehensive suite of solutions.
Technical Aspect of NAMI
NAMI integrates with the core banking systems of financial institutions, which serve as the backbone of their operations. By leveraging APIs and partnering with core banking providers like FIS, Fiserv, and Jack Henry, NAMI ensures seamless integration with existing bank infrastructure. Additionally, NAMI offers various integrations with third-party tools related to areas such as security and payment processing. This integration allows NAMI to serve as the customer-facing layer with real-time connectivity to the back-end systems.
Differentiating Factors and Future Outlook
NAMI sets itself apart from competitors through its continuous focus on user experience and innovation. The company is committed to evolving its product offerings to meet the changing expectations of consumers and businesses. Additionally, NAMI distinguishes itself through its in-house development and high investment in research and development. In the future, NAMI aims to further expand its product portfolio, deepen integration capabilities, and continue its growth as a leading digital banking provider.
In today’s episode, Kailee Costello hosts Nikhil Lakhanpal, Co-Founder at Narmi. Narmi’s mission is to offer financial institutions the best digital banking platform in the industry. Narmi does this through an API-driven platform that layers on top of existing banking infrastructure to give these financial institutions access to Narmi’s products, including digital account opening, consumer and business digital banking, and an admin platform.
In this episode you will hear about:
- Nikhil’s journey from running a financial institution during his undergraduate years at Georgetown to founding a fintech.
- How Narmi integrates with the tech stack for financial institutions to provide a superior customer experience
- How Narmi thinks about segmenting and targeting potential customers
- How Narmi approaches selling to financial institutions (which have typically been risk-averse and slow to adopt new technologies)
- Who Narmi’s main competitors are, and how Narmi distinguishes its value proposition from theirs
- Outlook for the banking sector, including the impact of FedNow and how banks have recently started focusing more on digital and tech spend
- What’s top of mind for Nikhil given that 2023 has been a tumultuous year for the banking sector
- How Narmi approached developing their suite of products, and whether what Narmi looks like today is what Nikhil envisioned when he started working on the company
- Narmi’s short-term goals, and where Nikhil sees Narmi 5 years from now
About Narmi
Narmi offers state of the art digital banking and digital account opening platforms to financial institutions. The platform – built for the enterprise – allows financial institutions to open accounts in less than 2.5 minutes, and then grow that relationship over a lifetime through intuitive mobile and online channels. Every single product at Narmi integrates with leading core banking systems.
About Nikhil Lakhanpal
Nikhil Lakhanpal is the Co-Founder of Narmi. Prior to Narmi, Nikhil ran a financial institution as CEO and also held roles in Investment Banking at Citi.
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