Tag: technology

• Working with Compliance as a Product Manager: A Practical Guide

  Let’s talk about working with compliance as a Product Manager. Whether you are a Product Manager or you aspire to be one, you will come across the world of compliance and risk management. This is especially important in industries or domains that require heavy regulation.

  For example, financial services, healthcare, medicine, food etc. are all heavily regulated.

  While you are not expected to be an expert in compliance and risk management, you are expected to understand what this means for the product and for the business.

  How does this really work? Let’s begin by first understanding the levels of compliance.

  

  Number 1: Company-level compliance

  At the very center, you will have compliance rules at the company level. There are certain guidelines that the company abides by and defines as standards to adhere to. These become your compliance rules.

  For example, “We do not want to sell our products to people under 18 years of age.” That’s a compliance guideline set by the company.

  Another example might be: “We do not wish to sell in a certain country or continent.” This means when your user tries to access your product from that country, they need to be blocked or restricted.

  Number 2: Country-level compliance

  The next level is compliance guidelines applicable in the country you are based in. For certain industries, each country sets up a bunch of rules and regulations for the safety and benefit of their citizens.

  Let’s say you are headquartered in USA and you wish to sell medicines online. USA might have a regulation that requires certain medicines to be FDA-approved before selling online. It is your responsibility to ensure that your online store cannot sell those specific medicines unless they’re FDA-approved.

  Let’s take another example. Imagine you’re in financial services or fintech sector in India. One of the rules for international transfers might be: “You cannot transfer more than $10,000 in a single payment.” If your product offers international payment transfers feature then you have to ensure that people don’t transfer more than $10,000 in a single payment.

  Number 3: Compliance in country of operations

  Suppose you are based in Singapore and headquartered there, but your products are being sold in the USA then you must also comply with USA regulations.

  Being compliant in Singapore alone is not sufficient anymore. You must be compliant in your home/base country and in every country you sell your product in.

  This is where many junior PMs make a mistake. I made a mistake too. I assumed that our product was ready for the global expansion only to realise later that I needed to be compliant in each new country that we expand to.

  Number 4: Global or Domain-specific compliance

  Finally, there may be compliance rules specific to your product’s domain or applicable globally. For example, The OFAC (Office of Foreign Assets Control) in the U.S. may blacklist certain countries or individuals. The OFAC is a financial intelligence and enforcement agency of the United States Treasury Department. While it is meant for the USA, their list of sanctioned people and countries is widely used by the Fintech companies.

  Why is this important? International payment transfers are very risky. People send money for all sorts of wrong reasons. While there are multiple ways to prevent fraud, one of the ways to detect is to validate sender and receiver details. Suppose the receiver is a criminal organisation and it is part of the OFAC sanctioned list then payment apps block such payments.

  Similar to OFAC, there will be other global bodies that may be relevant for your product’s sector; and you need to be aware of those.

  Why do we need Compliance team?

  Most companies will have Compliance team. They have titles like “Compliance Officer”, “Risk Analyst”, “Compliance Manager”, “Fraud & Risk Analyst” etc. People with these titles come with vast experience of the domain knowledge. If you are part of a company that does not have a dedicated Compliance Team then you should talk to your managers or core team and establish the key decision-maker.

  Here are 3 reasons for having a dedicated team:

  1. Awareness of implications for non-compliance: This is by far the most important reason. A company should be aware of all possible implications for not complying with rules and regulations. The implication can be as small as minor fee or as big as a multi-million dollar court case. It is the team’s responsibility to understand and break down these implications and ensure that the product is compliant. They work with the Legal team to ensure that the company’s interests are protected at all times.
  2. Keeping up with the authorities: Regulatory authorities continuously make changes to the policies and issue new guidelines. This team knows the right place to get the latest updates and make sure they don’t miss out on critical updates.
  3. Understanding the legalese: If you have ever seen a guideline or a document issued by any regulatory body, you know how incomprehensible it can get. With their experience in reading these complex documents, they are able to decode it much faster.

  You might think this all sounds very trivial. But in reality, it is not nice to get police complaints and legal notices.

  What is Product Manager’s role if Compliance Team exists?

  Compliance team’s focus is to protect company’s interests at all costs. This means at times, Compliance team will seem like a blocker. They would want to impose all types of restrictions. While some requirements are non-negotiable deliverables, some other requirements might be negotiable. Let me explain what I mean by negotiable with an example.

  Suppose you are in Fintech and your app allows people to send money from their account to any person anywhere in the world. Now, imagine a regulation that says, one person in Country A cannot send more than $10,000 to another person in Country B in a month.

  Your compliance team could say, “let’s block all transactions between Country A and Country B on our app.” This is the most restrictive interpretation of the rule. If you read the rule again, you will understand that the limitation is on the total amount a person can send in a month. This type of requirement is negotiable and open to discussion.

  An example of non-negotiable requirement would be “government has ordered all companies to stop the transactions between Country A and Country B”. You have to simply deliver on this.

  Since a Product Manager is responsible for the success of their product, you often have to find the right balance between being compliant and harming the user experience.

  Therefore, a Product Manager is required to advocate for the users while the Compliance team advocates for the company.

  Framework to approach compliance requirements

  Let’s do a thought experiment. Imagine you’re now part of a product that has to be compliant whenever you make a new feature release. How do you proceed?

  If you are absolutely new to the product you might have to do some prep work.

  • Identify the Compliance team or member responsible for final decision-making.
  • Identify the relevant regulatory bodies for your product. Read more about them and their frequency of issuing new policies.
  • Understand the existing rules and why they exist.
  • Go through the current user’s journey and make a map of it. Try to break down the journey in smaller chunks and then create detailed map of that user’s journey.
  • Ensure there is proper documentation of all the existing rules and validations that make your product compliant.

  By doing the above steps, you become more knowledgeable and your opinions will have depth during the meetings. If you skip these steps you are more likely to play catch-up game during important discussions.

  When dealing with new feature request from Compliance team

  You begin the Product Discovery phase and document everything:

  • What are the exact rules issued by the regulatory body?
  • What changes are expected in the product?
  • How does the current user experience look like?
  • What will change in terms of UI?
  • How should we communicate with the users and other teams?

  Tip: The key here is to be concise and precise when documenting the first draft.

  By the end of your short discovery, you will have clear idea of what changes are expected.

  Next is, Prioritization. It is very likely that you are swamped with work because you might have committed to a roadmap already. Before you open discussions with other stakeholders you need to know following things:

  • Is there any deadline set by the regulatory bodies? Is that deadline negotiable?
  • Do we have any legal implications for not delivering on this requirement?
  • Does it line up with our current company strategy? Or are we doing this for the sake of doing it?
  • Other than being compliant, are there other potential benefits to be unlocked, e.g. can we expand to another market easily if we do this now?

  Tip: It is very tempting to neglect requests from Compliance team but ignoring them can have dire consequences for your product. As a PM you should be aware of all risks.

  Assume you have the highest priority for this feature request, you then begin Design and Development phase. You can follow whatever process you have when it comes to design and development but ensure the following:

  • Share the first drafts of your design for early feedback.
  • Once you have final designs, share them with other stakeholders that might get impacted by the upcoming changes. For example, if you are making a change that has positive impact on business strategy then inform Business team so that they can prepare their pitches accordingly. If the change adds more work to Operations team, then show them the designs and help them prepare ahead of the release.
  • During this phase, keep an active line of communication with the Compliance team. They have to be aware of delays.
  • Give clarity on deadlines and expected end result to your Development team. Inform them about the implications of non-compliance.

  Tip: Design and Development is highly collaborative phase because during development you will encounter new blockers. As a PM, you should facilitate elimination of these blockers.

  Next comes, Testing phase. In my experience, getting your compliance team to test the features before release is very useful. It depends on the criticality of the feature and the availability of the team. Following things are important to do:

  • Prepare a short demo video and share with the team before you release to production.
  • Be flexible for the last minute changes to the feature.
  • You might get a list of improvements soon after the release, these should be documented well.
  • Document the potential impact on other teams and communicate that ahead of time.
  • Keep your legal team updated as well.

  Tip: When releasing critical changes, test the product yourself.

  Don’t skip Post-release monitoring. Most people move on to another feature. Here is what you need to be aware of:

  • Add event tracking wherever possible. This will help you create dashboard in analytics tool later.
  • Create reports and add them to your regular review meetings. This way, you can keep track of the feature performance.

  Final words

  Working with Compliance team might make you feel less autonomous but that is the reality of working in regulated industries. Don’t seek full autonomy and don’t work in silo.

  Compliance team will continue to advocate for the company and Product Manager should continue to advocate for the users. This is the balance you strike as a Product Manager.

  April 29, 2025

  #productmanagement, business, compliance, Compliance and risk product, Compliance management, compliance product manager, product manager, technology

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• Digital Payment Methods in India: UPI, Credit Cards and more

  We have come a long way from getting INR 10 cash from our mothers for Parle-G biscuit to making payment with single clicks on our phone.

  

  Cash was the only mode of payment in India — until we saw mass adoption of new technology and mobile phones.

  In India, we see new payment app released almost every month. While UPI payments had accelerated the digital payments space, there are several other modes of digital payments.

  Since 2016, I have worked in 5 Fintech companies across payment gateways, global money transfers and prepaid cards. In this blog, we’ll explore various payment modes available in India.

  • Bank account to Bank Account Transfer (e.g. NEFT)
  • Cards (Debit, Credit and Prepaid)
  • UPI
  • Digital Wallets
  • Pay Later

  Bank Account to Bank Account Transfer

  This mode of payment lets you send the money directly from your bank account to another bank account. NEFT, RTGS, IMPS fall under this category.

  In order to transfer money, you will need the full Bank Account details of the receiver like Account Number, Account Name, Bank Name, IFSC code and Branch Name.

  They work well when you have to transfer large amounts. This method is very popular when businesses have to pay for big invoices.

  However, it is highly inconvenient on online shopping sites or anything that demands instant payment confirmation to both sellers and buyers.

  Another drawback is that receiver may not always get the sender’s details. While some banks have tried to improve this, a lot of banks have not.

  Through IMPS you can send the money instantly, while NEFT and RTGS could take longer.

  NetBanking

  Netbanking emerged as an intermediate choice to make a payment. I’d like to think of it as a choice in between NEFT and Card. 

  This is how it works, if you are on a shopping site and you chose Netbanking, you are redirected to an authentication page. This is where you will either enter your password or OTP and then the payment is successful. You need not know seller’s bank account details. It is a step up from Bank to Bank transfer. It works only if you have a bank account and sufficient money in it.

  One of the limitations is that not all banks support this payment method.

  Cards

  There are 3 types of cards:

  • Debit
  • Credit
  • Prepaid — Debit cum Credit

  They come in a plastic or metal form. You can get a card either from your bank or any financial institute like American Express. Cards add a lot more convenience when compared to above 2 choices for payments.

  They come with controls like payment limits, blocking a card and changing PINs when required. While cards are issued by the banks, a card network provider like Rupay, Mastercard, Visa, Maestro is required. These Card Networks act as intermediate layer between Merchant’s bank, your bank and you. 

  Card Networks and banks work together towards fraud prevention and consumer protection. Because they offer these services, Card networks charge a certain fee on each transaction to the merchant. Depending on the fees sellers can choose which card to allow and which to avoid. You will notice American Express is not widely accepted at retail stores.

  All cards issued in India will work in India but for international payments, you might have to contact your bank. While many banks have made it easy in their apps, other banks still operate in traditional way.

  Debit Card

  Debit card is connected to your bank account. It works only if you have sufficient money in your bank account. And this is the key difference between your debit card and credit card. I will explain Credit Cards next.

  Many banks issue Debit cards free of cost when you open a bank account. It lets you pay at stores, online sites with ease. You can also control spends by setting up payment limits.

  Credit Card

  It’s in the name, it is a credit. Imagine getting a loan for 45 days without any interest. You get a certain limit, say INR 1,00,000. You can spend upto 1 Lac and pay the bill later. Of course, if you cannot pay that bill, you will be charged fees for the late payment. This is usually considered risky payment method because you may be tempted to pay more than you can afford.

  People are attracted to Credit cards because they offer some rewards. The more you spend, the more rewards you get. Rewards are usually in the form of points which can then be redeemed.

  Banks are quick to give out Credit cards with lower limits like INR 10,000 to INR 25,000 to masses. However, to get higher limits like INR 1,00,000+ requires certain income. Some banks also assess your spending capacity and your payment history. If you had missed credit card bill payments in the past, you are less likely to get higher limits.

  Paying credit card bills is also easy. You can directly pay from your bank application or use apps like Cred.

  Prepaid Cards — Debit cum Credit

  You will have to know some technicality to understand this payment method and why it is used. This type of card behaves like a Credit Card but does not have credit limit.

  A card has 16 digits card number. They are either printed on the card or shown in the mobile app. The first 6 digits of the card number is called BIN (Bank Identification Number). It helps identify the type of card. Numerous websites accept only Credit cards but not Debit cards. Debit cum Credit card solves this problem. They offer you a Card that acts as Credit Card but you will have to load money onto it. You can only spend what you have loaded. It is the BIN that identifies this card as Credit card.

  Niyo, Happay are couple of examples in India. Banks also directly offer Prepaid cards. Globally, apps like Wise, Revolut and Monzo are very popular. 

  I did a case study on Wise where I go in-depth about their UX 
  (Check it out here).

  In the screenshot, EUR 347.06 is the amount I can spend using my Wise prepaid card.

  

  Since they offer less risk to both banks and customers, while also solving a core need, prepaid cards became extremely popular in many countries.

  UPI

  Unified Payment Interface, or UPI has become a household name. Your grandparents might be already using it. It is used for peer to peer and peer to merchant payments.

  When it was first launched, you needed a UPI virtual address to send or receive payment. Nowadays, you only need phone number of the person. In the background, every user gets a virtual private address something like 99XXXXXXX@kotakbank to identify the unique user. UPI is always linked to your bank account which is also linked to the phone number.

  You do need a bank account to use UPI. Each bank might have different limits to send and receive money.

  As soon as banks adopted it, companies like Paytm, Phonepe, Bharatpe, Google Pay capitalised on the opportunity to make it easy for the merchants to receive payments via QR code.

  While UPI works beautifully for small payment amounts, NEFT and Cards are still the go-to choice for large sum of money.

  A simple google search should help you understand the scale of this technology and how it became a huge success. It’s an incredible story from digital India.

  There is another category of payments that you might have come across. These payment methods still use your bank account but they have different flavours.

  Digital Wallets

  Products like Paytm and Phonepe have popularised this type of payment method already. Almost every B2C product seems to offer “Wallet.”

  I will skip the technicality on how these Wallets are actually created and how they work in background.

  In order to use the Wallets, you first have to load the amount from your bank account. Usually, there is a limit between INR 10,000 to INR 20,000. Every month, you can load that amount and use it to make payment. To avail higher limits, you have to complete KYC within these apps.

  Products use Wallet as a hook to retain customers. For example, when you order food on Swiggy, they can give you some discount if you use their wallet. You will be tempted to load money in order to avail this discount.

  Wallets were very popular before UPI. You could transfer money from your wallet in Paytm to someone else’s Paytm wallet. It facilitated peer to peer transactions easily.

  Pay Later

  This is similar to how your shopkeeper in the neighbourhood used to give you “udhaar” or credit. When you shop online, you can choose to pay the amount later within X number of days. The number of days depend on multiple factors. Typically, you will see 30, 45 or 60 days. Lazypay is an example for Pay Later option. In Europe, Klarna Pay Later is quite popular. You will also be charged some interest amount.

  The biggest risk is the non-payment. Many people can buy once and never pay back. When companies offer this choice, they usually allocate a budget for such risky transactions.

  Another factor is, collection. Your neighbourhood shopkeeper can show up at your house but these companies cannot trace you easily. You will receive many calls but it’s easy to buy a sim card and discard it.

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  If you found this interesting, you might be interested in a case study on UX of Indian & Dutch bank mobile app, check here.

  Also, don’t miss Swiggy (Indian) vs JustEatTakeaway(Dutch) case study. See here.

  March 12, 2025

  Credit Card in India, finance, india, NEFT, payment methods in india, product management, technology, UPI

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