Tell us what motivated you to become a financial advisor.
I have to admit, the decision to start a financial advisory business was motivated in part by my personal experience. While I was working as head of financial services at Mphasis BFL, a large bank’s RM used to advice my wife and me on investments. On receiving a rather unfortunate financial advice, I discussed my woes with my colleagues only to realise that they too were unhappy with the quality of advice. I sensed an untapped opportunity here.
My wife and I realised that people would happily hire ethical advisors who gave advice based on their client’s needs. From this belief, we started PeakAlpha in 2005. We envisioned it to be a firm which will keep clients’ interest in the forefront. Our motto is to help clients achieve their goals.
How do you go about acquiring new clients and servicing the existing ones?
As we all know, Bengaluru is a knowledge hub. There are many IT companies and start-ups mushrooming in the city. In the initial days, we approached these companies to conduct investor awareness programmes. These were programmes lasted for about an hour and a half where we talked about importance of investing. We acquired our initial clients through these events.
Now, after 13 years in the business I can happily say that our client acquisition mix is changing. Nowadays we onboard only 50% of new clients through IAPs and the rest are through referrals given by our happy clients.
Why and when did you decided to digitalise your business by subscribing to online transaction platform like NSE NMF II?
Being well versed in financial services technology, I had decided to incorporate it into all aspects of our business. Our firm has been offering clients web-based planning solutions since the early days. However, one key area which we had not digitised then was mutual fund transactions. Realising that an online platform would give a boost to the business, we were eagerly awaiting the launch of a transaction portal. So when NSE launched NSE NMF II we were amongst its earliest adopters.
Today, we transact on two platforms though majority of our transactions are carried on the NSE platform.
Why did you go for NSE NMF II? What is it that NSE NMFII provides which other such platforms do not?
We subscribed to the NSE platform in 2015. At that time, transaction platforms only offered demat transactions. We felt this was a major handicap as majority of our clients invested in the physical format. Meanwhile, NSE NMF II was designed as a digital extension for physical transactions. Thus, we decided to move our business on the NSE platform.
How has the platform helped you grow business?
As we had anticipated, digitisation has been a boon for the business. Transacting via physical forms requires 3-4 days for processing to buy transactions. This happens as there is a certain amount of time lost at every stage, be it collecting documents or filling up the forms. Also, ensuring the registrar receives the redemption request before cut-off time used to be a challenge.
Online transactions have changed the field. Now, we process transactions at the click of a button. This helps us save time. Today about 90% of our transactions are digital. We opt for physical transactions only while on boarding new clients.
Another key area, which has benefited from digitisation is customer acquisition. Now, we can tap on clients in diverse locations and complete their KYC process online.
Apart from execution of transaction, which three functions in the NSE platform have you used the most?
We mainly use NSE NMF II for client transactions. Apart from that, we regularly extract end of the day (EOD) reports from the portal. These reports help us summarise all transactions initiated during the day. Additionally, we are working closely with the NSE team to integrate its API functionality with our website. This will help us personalise the transaction process for our clients.
What are the areas that could be improved in NSE NMF II platform?
One area where we would welcome faster turnaround time is registering of ACH mandates. Currently, registering ACH mandates of certain banks takes a lot of time. A faster registration can help us start client transactions sooner.. But the launch of the e-mandates will reduce the turnaround time considerably.
Additionally, different banks have different transaction limits. Thus, having a common transaction platform, which the NSE is in process of introducing, may be beneficial, as it will ensure that there is no maximum transaction limit for the investor. I am sure this is a dependency that the platform would have on banks.
Why do you think that distributors should use online platforms?
Apart from allowing one an opportunity to tap clients in geographically diverse locations, an additional advantage offered by online platforms is that they enable you to service your clients better by making the transaction process seamless and allowing clients to effortlessly review their portfolio online.
