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Medics of Indian Monetary Consumers

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Medics of Indian Monetary Consumers
Medics of Indian Monetary Consumers
Suyash Desai - 15 May 2019

Financial literacy is an important concern for many nations, certainly for developing ones like India, where financial literacy rate is low and fraud rate is high. According to a survey conducted by Standard and Poor’s Financial Services LLC in 2015, the key financial concepts and its nitty-gritties are alien to 76 per cent of adults in India. Similarly, a survey conducted in 2018 by FIS, a financial service technology provider states that 18 per cent Indians suffered from an online banking fraud last year. To add to this, Ravi Shankar Prasad—the minister of Information and Technology in the Government of India informed the Parliament that there were about 25,800 fraud cases involving Rs179 crore in 2017.

This twin factor, lack of financial awareness and increasing fraud cases has affected the fiscal health of India. In such a scenario IndiaMoney.com, a company conceptualised in 2008 is emerging as a specialised medic for consumers in the field of financial services including personal finance.

According to C S Sudheer, CEO and Founder, IndianMoney.com, lack of financial literacy makes the common man, vulnerable to fraud and mis-selling. “The rationale behind starting IndianMoney.com was not just making the common man financially literate, but also educating him substantially about finances, thereby making it difficult to cheat him”.

“IndianMoney.com was ahead of the curve in launching such an initiative as financial education was not even discussed at regulatory levels”, he says.

The website educates people at four levels, Save, Spend, Invest and Borrow. These segments can be further divided in to services like insurance, mutual funds, banking, tax planning, pension planning, loans and many more on which the website educates people.  “We have a dedicated team of certified finance professionals who educate and guide an individual, making him/her financially aware and less vulnerable to fraud”, boasts Sudheer.

 

Modus Operandi

Internet, phone and mobile application are the three broad areas through which IndianMoney.com tries to reach its customers.

“On Call Advice” is one of the important features of this initiative where anyone can get free financial education on any kind of personal finance product.

 “People who seek financial advice before saving, investing or availing personal finance products can simply leave a missed call on the helpline number”, Sudheer confirms. Advisors from IndianMoney.com, which Sudheer refers to as trained Wealth Doctors call back and edify the consumer on the required product. “Wealth Doctors also help such individuals with financial planning subject to their approval”, he adds. Besides call, the website also tries to reach the csutomer through IndianMoney Mobile Application, and a host of other networks through digital and television medium. “We have our YouTube channel which is performing really well. We are ranked number one in the Fintech Space in terms of subscribers’ and content on the video sharing site. Our Youtube subscribers list is soaring and our reach is growing every minute”, Sudheer says. He furthermore adds that Indianmoney.com also contributes articles on trending financial topics for increasing the canvas of fiscal education in the country.

Its presence is now spread across 664 cities in India and has 13 call centres in various parts of India. “We educate people in 11 different languages which help us connect in a better way”, Sudheer says. We receive around 23,000 missed calls on a daily basis, he adds. On the issue of conflict of interest while making money, Sudheer gives a disclaimer that IndianMoney.com isn’t a seller of any financial product. “Generating leads for the associates and service providers registered on their platform is the revenue model of IndianMoney.com.  The consumer is not charged for financial education and the company earns a ‘referral fee’ for every lead transferred and not ‘success fees’ thereby, remaining unbiased in rendering honest and genuine advice”, he says.

Sagar Srikanth, 43, an assistant manager with TV5 media group Bangalore was facing an issue with selection of life insurance term plan. On acquaintance with IndianMoney.com, he was provided with few options and counselling sessions to clear the ambiguity while selecting the plan. He was also linked to the agents and given appointments as per his convenience by IndianMoney.com. Similarly, Adarsh Desai, 33, a fitness instructor from Dharvad who left his job in Germany to start his own venture was helped by IndianMoney.com to get his desired health insurance. Besides, Indian Money.com has also helped Nidhi, 23, an executive in an advertising agency in Bangalore; Reena, 22, a copywriter from Chennai and Avnish, 32, a digital marketing strategist also from Bengaluru in planning their day-to-day balance sheet and tax fillings.

On enquiring with Sudheer for the purpose of such a unique initiative, he states a personal example which inspired him to work towards this venture. According to Sudheer, his interaction with an auto driver who was mis-informed and mislead about an insurance policy with a Regular Premium ULIP plan, convinced him for the need of financial education in India. “There is a dearth of genuine, honest and unbiased financial advice and to address this concern, IndianMoney.com began with an objective to end the unethical, misleading sales practices and spread financial literacy”, he says.

IndianMoney.com was featured as one of the most innovative fintech companies driving financial capability in India by Center for Financial Inclusion’s Research Paper funded by JP Morgan and is also the financial education partner of Karnataka State Police. Besides, it has worked with the Finance Ministry to educate the Jan Dhan Account holders of a Regional Rural Bank after the launch of the former scheme. 

suyash@outlookindia.com

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