Srikanth Bhagavat, managing director, Hexagon Capital Advisors Pvt. Ltd
Paytm is grabbing attention because it is no stranger to using technology. It has evidenced its ability to use India Stack to create a large user base of 300 million. Given India’s population of about 1.25 billion, barely 2% invest in mutual funds. Recent efforts have been paying off, but in such an environment any firm with deep pockets and technological ability can strike it big. The internet is truly a great panacea for increasing reach, especially among the millennials who currently form a smaller proportion of mutual fund investors in India than those above the 35-year age group. The argument may be that one cannot get great advice from a robot or Excel templates, and I belong to that camp, but the majority of youngsters do not need complex advisory services. They just need to make a small SIP as per their risk assessment for it to make business sense for Paytm.
