My Wishlist for a Financial Services Company

Financial services is a fragmented one in India. My rough estimate is that there are over 20 lakh agents & advisors trying to sell you a financial product.

And there is an information asymmetry there, with your advisor knowing more info about the product than what is known by the buyers.

Moreover, an insurance agent doesn't know about Mutual Funds and vice versa.

I think there is a huge business opportunity for a one stop, holistic financial services company.

What would be my wish list from such a company?

To differentiate between other competitors, which includes millions of agents/advisors, they must have:

1. Well trained, professional financial planners on role call
2. Providing personal finance education to the prospects through:

• e-books,
• fortnightly news magazines,
• online module on financial planning,
• seminars every week,
• seminars at the workplace of prospects (through tie ups with corporates)

3. Providing personal finance desktop application/software to the clients

What is your wish list for a Financial Services Company?

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Financial Planning for the Future

Found this presentation on Financial Planning by Kaushal Mandalia. Very nice visuals and description of a stable v/s unstable portfolio. Check it out!

Financial Planning The Need Of The Tough Time

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: practice success)

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My Presentation Pack on Slideshare

| Get your Presentation Pack

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The Best Personal Finance Writer: Benjamin Franklin

JDR points me to the fact that the best personal-finance writer, Benjamin Franklin was born today. It's his 303rd B'day. A few famous aphorisms from Franklin:

• “Remember that time is money.”
• “Early to bed, and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.”
• “Beware of little expenses — a small leak will sink a great ship.”
• “There are no gains, without pains.”

Read the full post

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Weekly Bulletins on Personal Finance

Check out these weekly updates on Personal Finance News in India. I have set this up on Tabbloid which bunches a few feeds into a pdf file.

To get started, read the Free Ebook first.

• Latest Update 15th January, 2009
• Bulletin dt. 8th January, 2009
• Bulletin dt. 1st January, 2009
• Bulletin dt. 25th December, 2008
• Bulletin dt. 18th December, 2008

Introduction. Let me know if it's helpful. Suggestions are welcome.

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New Year Resolutions?

I do not really believe in new year resolutions. And as I blog trawl my own posts, there isn't one last year too! (though there was a review of 2007)

I do want to share the following quotes with you all the same.

No one can make you change
No one can stop you from changing
No one really knows how you must change
Not even you.
Not until you start
- David Viscott (Risking)

It’s never too late to be
what you might have been
-George Eliot

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Satyam: Riding a Tiger, Not Knowing How to Get Off

It's a sad day for Corporate India. The Satyam story took a shocking turn today. Read the Satyam End Game

B. Ramalinga Raju, CEO, Satyam owned up to inflating the bank balance by Rs 5040 crore and an accrued interest of Rs. 376 crore which is non-existent ! He says,

...every attempt made to eliminate the gap failed. As the promoters held a small percentage of equity, the concern was that poor performance would result in a take-over; thereby exposing the gap. It was like riding a tiger, not knowing how to get off without being eaten.

Every investor and Authorities will be at Raju's throat. But my heart goes out to Raju's courage to come out of the closet and admit that he made a mistake.

He could have easily said (as and when the truth came out,if at all), "look the accounts have been audited by PWC and I don't know a thing about inflated revenues" And he may not have visualised the enormous ramifications of inflating the revenues.

As I write this, I am getting aware that these excuses don't hold anywhere. Neither his statements like the ones below:

1. That neither myself, nor the Managing Director (including our spouses) sold any shares in the last eight years — excepting for a small proportion declared and sold for philanthropic purposes.

2. That in the last two years a net amount of Rs. 1,230 crore was arranged to Satyam (not reflected in the books of Satyam) to keep the operations going by resorting to pledging all the promoter shares and raising funds from known sources by giving all kinds of assurances.

But I wish Mr. Raju, his family and the Satyam employees all the strength to bear all this shocks.

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