A conversation with Padma Subramanian, CEO of Fyrii.ai

SEATTLE, WA – Padma Subramanian, CEO of Fyrii AI, which powers API integrations for, among many others, India’s three largest private banks, shares a David & Goliath story. Banks everywhere should pay heed.

Today, API Integration is a $21 billion pain point for the financial sector.

It’s about to get much bigger.

Scores of APIs are needed to open just one new checking account or allow you to pay for pizza on your favorite delivery app. Fyrii reduces the cost of API integrations by 90% and automates the necessary and frequent API updates and maintenance, saving banks thousands of hours and billions of dollars. Game changer.

Faster, lower-cost API integrations means more financial services and options for consumers everywhere, often from providers that exist outside the banking industry. What’s changing? Why? What will our personal ‘financial stacks’ look like in the age of SuperApps?

Padma explains how the financial world is changing for banks and consumers with the emergence of Super-Apps and the arrival of agentic AI.

Nhã Vuong: For those of us who don’t speak fluent “Deep Tech” can you tell us how to pronounce your company’s name and explain what Fyrii does?

Padma: Fyrii is pronounced “fiery.” We chose the name because we are putting the financial world ‘on fire.’ We make it easy for banks and fintechs to plug their products into millions of apps that people use every day.

Stripe’s plug-and-play simplicity made it possible for any app to accept digital payments. Stripe made it possible for millions of small businesses to accept credit cards and other electronic payments. Democratizing access to payment integration made Stripe a billion dollar company. Fyrii makes it possible for thousands of banks and apps to use the same kind of “plug-and-play” process to integrate with one another on the web and on mobile devices, including an emerging and very important group of applications called ‘Super Apps’.

Nhã: What are SuperApps and why are they important?

SuperApps are multi-purpose mobile or web applications. The core appeal of SuperApps is their convenience. Users perform a very large variety of tasks for daily life without switching between different applications. SuperApps create a seamless, integrated digital experience with far fewer apps on your mobile device. Think of it as a one-stop shop for daily life.

SuperApps are most prevalent in Asia such as WeChat in China and Grab in Singapore, though there’s growing interest in other regions. They are not yet available in the U.S. market. Consumers can do a vast array of things on a Super App.

Amazon Pay in India is a true digital wallet and payment platform that goes far beyond what Amazon Pay offers in the US. You can order groceries or rides, top up phone cards, pay utility bills and loans. Find and hire a housekeeper and a babysitter and pay them right in the app.

Typically, SuperApps include a full messaging and social media platform (think WhatsApp, facebook, and TikTok), digital wallets, peer-to-peer transfers (think zelle or PayPal), bill payments (such as utilities, rent, business license fees, parking, tolls and more), in-store purchases, mobile banking (no need to go your bank’s website), investments (like coinbase, Etrade), loans, and insurance.

Like Amazon in the U.S., you can buy groceries, clothes, electronics, and other products from various vendors or the app’s marketplace. Replacing Uber or Lyft apps, you can order your ride shares and rental cars in the same app. Book flights, hotels, tours, activities, dinner reservations or order-out meals on your SuperApp. Stream TV and movies, listen to music, and play games, all in your SuperApp. You can even book medical or dental appointments, massages, haircuts, and other local services. You can even access and pay for government services like taxes or license renewals.

Nhã: Well, that will clean up all the apps clogging up my mobile! What makes Fyrii a billion dollar company?

The Market Is HUGE

Every bank wants to be embedded in apps. And apps want to offer credit, savings, insurance, or simple payments. Fyrii sits right in the middle between the banks and the apps, making it fast, easy, and affordable to connect with one another so they can sell products and services to an eager market. Fyrii earns revenue on every successful financial journey. That is why Fyrii is a billion dollar idea.

Nhã: What is a Financial Journey and how does AI fit into this process?

Agentic AI – smart helpers

Agentic AI is artificial intelligence designed to act like a smart digital assistant. Agentic AI bots don’t just process data, they actively decide what information is needed, execute tasks, and adapt their actions to operate across complex workflows.

Fyrii’s Agentic AI turns raw banking APIs into intelligent, self-operating agents. These can onboard users, handle KYC, personalize offers, open bank accounts, credit cards, loans, and complete other financial journeys such as investment trades and much more, in seconds. This makes financial institution integrations faster, smarter, and massively more scalable. It transforms rigid APIs into lightning-fast, dynamic, user-aware services that work across banks, apps, and use cases.

Fyrii sits in the middle between banks and apps. Rather than integrate with every bank, credit card, and fintech payment platform separately, the apps integrate with Fyrii. And, rather than integrate with every app individually, banks integrate with Fyrii. Fyrii is the go-between in the middle that allows banks and apps to connect to and interact with one another.

Now, banks and apps can integrate with one another by having Fyrii ‘turn on a switch’ as it were. When all the parts of an ecosystem are vetted and connected to once central source, they can connect to one another extremely quickly and easily. That’s what Fyrii does – we are the go-between that reduces the time and cost of API integrations to about 10% of historical costs. As you note, it’s a game changer.

Nhã: Why are SuperApps becoming so popular? Is it just the convenience of having fewer apps to get things done on your mobile?

Padma: Embedded finance is a necessity for platforms serving gig workers and MSMEs. Fyrii’s plug-and-play financial journeys make it possible for fintechs outside the traditional banking system to engage with gig workers the banks cannot serve. Banks use verification processes that are challenged to determine the creditworthiness of a client who is a gig worker. As millions of people engage in gig work – from full time solo-entrepreneur business consultants to part time party planners who want mortgages, car loans, investment accounts, insurance, and much more, emerging fintech companies have risen to serve this massive market opportunity.

Apps, including SuperApps, want to connect to as many financial service providers as they possibly can, making it ever easier for consumers to use their services. Fyrii’s growth, along with the growth of SuperApps, is powered by the burgeoning gig economy.

Nhã: Where to next? What are your plans for Fyrii’s growth?

We are US based. We work with some credit unions and banks in the U.S. However, the infrastructure in the U.S. is decades behind that of emerging markets. Our early major customers are in India. We will expand to Southeast Asia and other regions where digital adoption is skyrocketing among large, mobile-first, unbanked and under-banked populations.

We’re also seeing strong demand from the emerging fintech ecosystems in MENA and Latin America, where regulatory sandboxes are encouraging innovation, but integration complexity still holds back growth. We solve for that. These are regions where Fyrii can leapfrog traditional infrastructure and become foundational.

About Fyrii: Fyrii™ is a SaaS platform based in Cupertino, California, led by Padma Subramanian and a team of veteran SaaS entrepreneurs. Today, banks using Fyrii reduce the cost of API integration and by 90%. Fyrii’s automated API maintenance capabilities save banks billions. Fyrii is funded by Mastersfund, Right Side Capital Management and Cachet Innovations. Learn more at: https://fyrii.ai/