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What is Zolve's cross-border TAM and how is it different from India's domestic banking problems?
Raghunandan G
Founder & CEO at Zolve
The cross-border market is the largest. For example, if you only looked at remittances last year, remittances to India from outside were $80 billion from individuals, and from SMEs it was $550 billion. That’s only cross-border remittances. We're not even talking about migration. We're not even talking about insurances and loans. There is no domestic market which is $550 billion.
And then there is investing in foreign markets. People have so much visibility on Apple, Tesla, Uber, Airbnb, Slack, Stripe, and they want to participate in this market. Currently, it's not seamless. People don't know how to really go out and do this. Crypto -- India's crypto is only trading accounts. The US has derivatives, staking, loans and much larger things. Indians don't want to just keep trading. They want to participate in that. Currently, the government doesn't let them do that. If you open it up, then you will see amazingly crazy participation. The Indian markets get you 10 to 15% returns, and outside markets can get you 20 to 30% returns on the index only.
I really look at the domestic market as primarily an underbanked population. In cross-border, I'm going to talk to a prospect who is super prime, and these guys have the intent to pay. Twenty million people a year go outside India, and everyone faces the same challenges. No banking system will change overnight to accommodate those guys. All these guys have some relationship back in their home country with their families. It’s going to be a much larger market. And there is nobody -- absolutely nobody -- helping them.