imgbd Think BIG: Business Perspectives

BIG platforms seize this 40 lakh crore market opportunity

Neeraj Choksi, NJ India and Sanjay Shah, Prudent

In a nutshell

In July 2016, Himanshu Vyapak unveiled at the Think BIG session at the Wealth Forum Platinum Circle Advisors Conference, his BIG idea of the year: Simply Save. Unmatched convenience of operation, instant redemption of money, better returns - a package deal that makes a compelling proposition to take on savings accounts - which enjoy Rs.40 lakh crores of floats, from crores of savers across the country. Two of India's biggest platforms - NJ India and Prudent have seized this opportunity with both hands and are optimistic about this proposition becoming a game changer for distributors and a big win for savers. Read on to understand how they read this market opportunity and how they are gearing up to harness it, and ask yourself whether you are gearing up likewise to tap this BIG opportunity.

Neeraj Choksi, NJ India

imgbd Simply Save is a very innovative idea from Reliance MF. The consumer proposition is very powerful - there is tremendous convenience in operation, potential for better returns than savings accounts and redemption within minutes even on a Sunday. It can become a proxy to savings bank accounts, and add a lot of value to savers. From a distributor's perspective, it can give us the edge that so far only banks enjoyed. Due to the fact that savings accounts are the point where all flows are captured, banks have an advantage of much more information on their customers, and with the use of data analytics, a number of business opportunities can get created. Now, this proposition can enable distributors to route all major flows through an ultra short term fund, and thus have access to the same high quality information as banks do. It is no secret that a large part of the ability of banks to grow their distribution business is on the back of understanding flows in savings accounts of their clients.

Very often, even those who are familiar with liquid funds, do not bother to use them for very short term purposes, as the operational effort in their mind outweighs the incremental returns. With a proposition like Simply Save, there are really no operational hassles at all - this will encourage many more people to become smarter with managing their idle balances.

We are seeing many disruptions in the financial services space - and a lot of this is focused on the payments side. It is good to see a potential disruption taking shape in the savings side as well.

We are integrating Simply Save into our online platform as well as into our mobile app. Our clients do not need to download a Simply Save app - the feature is being made available in our core proposition itself, as a white labelled solution. We are optimistic about investor response to this innovation and we believe it is a good win-win proposition for investors as well as for non-bank distributors.

Sanjay Shah, Prudent

imgbd I think this is a great innovation from Reliance MF. It gives distributors an opportunity to address a Rs.40 lakh crore business opportunity, with a very competitive customer proposition. There is Rs. 40 lakh crores lying in savings bank accounts - an inefficiency that is waiting to be addressed with intelligent customer centric solutions, and I think Simply Save is one such solution. We have created a proposition on Fundzbazar called InstaFundz, where we are actively promoting the key features of Simply Save. I believe as more fund houses follow Reliance MF's trailblazing effort, this market opportunity will expand very significantly for the fund industry and for distributors.

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We have an active mailing campaign that we are running for InstaFundz, and early results are very encouraging. We are already getting over 100 transactions a day, and volumes of Rs.50-60 lakh per day.

We have made a presentation for our channel partners to help them understand the opportunity and how to leverage it with this new innovation.

Click here to download Prudent's InstaFundz presentation to its channel partners.

(A must read presentation for all retail focused distributors)

Today, very few retail oriented IFAs are really working on new client acquisition in a focused way. I believe this is a great vehicle to drive new client acquisition, as the proposition is very simple to understand, the convenience is great and the benefits are visible from day one to the investor. To my mind, if we use this proposition as our new client acquisition vehicle and then get these first time MF investors more comfortable over time with the full range of funds, it will be a win-win effort for all of us - for investors, distributors and the mutual funds.



Content is created by Wealth Forum and must not be construed as an opinion by Reliance Mutual Fund.



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